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SET   DOWN   IN   MALICE 


SET   DOWN    IN    MALICE 


A    BOOK    OF    REMINISCENCES 


BY 

GERALD  CUMBERLAND 


* 


"Do  I  contradict  myself?    Very  well,  then,  I  contradict  myself." 

Walt  Whitman. 


B RE NT AN OS 
NEW    YORK 

MDCCCCXIX 


PRINTED    IN   GREAT    BRITAIN    BY   THE    RIVERSIDE    TRESS    LIMITED 
EDINBURGH 


UXORI  HORAS  AMISSAS  REDDO 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

VERY  many  of  the  following  pages  were  written  in 
the  trenches  and  dug-outs  of  Greece  and  Serbia. 
I  added  a  chapter  or  two  in  Port  Said,  Alex- 
andria and  Marseilles.  That  is  to  say,  I  wrote  far  away 
from  books  and  without  reference  to  documents,  and  I 
wrote  to  refresh  a  mind  dulled  by  the  conditions  of  Active 
Service  in  the  Near  East.  A  few  chapters  were  written 
in  London  and  a  few  in  Winchester. 

Here  and  there  may  be  found  factual  inaccuracies, 
though  if  these  exist  I  am  not  aware  of  them.  But 
the  spirit  of  the  book  is  as  near  the  truth  as  I  can 
bring  it. 

Gerald  Cumberland 

Winchester 

2nd  June  1918 


I 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I.   Mr  George  Bernard  Sii  \\v 

II.   Miscellaneous  . 

Mrs  Annie  Besant — Mr  Marcus  Stone — Mr  Lloyd 
George — Bishop  Welldon — Dr  Walford  Davies 

III.  Mr   Frank   Harris.  . 

IV.  Miscellaneous  .  .  .  .  . 

Madame  Yvette  Guilbert — Sir  Victor  Horsley — Mrs 
Pankhurst — Mr  Jacob  Epstein — Madame  Aino  Ackte 

V.   Mr  Stanley  Houghton  and  Mr  Harold  Brighouse 

VI.  Some  Writers  ..... 

Mr  Arnold  Bennett — Mr  G.  K.  Chesterton — Mr 
Lascelles  Abercrombie — Mr  Harold  Monro — Mr  John 
Masefield — Mr  Jerome  K.  Jerome — Sir  Owen  Seaman 
—Mr  A.  A.  Milne 


VII.  Sir  Edward  Elgar 
VIII.   Intellectual  Freaks 
IX.    Fleet  Street 


X.   Mr  Hall  Caine 
XI.   More  Writers 


Rev.  T.  E.  Brown — Mr  A.  R.  Orage — Mr  Norman 
Angell—  Mr  St  John  Ervine — Mr  Charles  Marriott- 
Mr  Max  Beerbohm— Mr  Israel  Zangwill — Mr  Alphonse 
Courlander — Mr  Ivan  Heald — Mr  Dixon  Scott — Mr 
Barry  Pain — Mr  Cunninghame  Graham 


PAGE 
11 

0O 


32 

47 

55 
68 


79 

88 

102 

117 

128 


10  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XII.   Musical  Critics    .  .  .  .  .143 

XIII.  Manchester  People  .  .  .  .153 

XIV.  Chelsea  and  Mr   Augustus  John  .  .        166 

XV.   Miscellaneous       .  .  .  .  .175 

Mr  Arthur  Henderson,  M. P.—  Lord  Derby— Miss 
Elizabeth  Robins — Mr  Frank  Mullings — Mr  Harold 
Bauer — Mr  Emil  Sauer— Mr  Vladimir  de  Pachmann 

XVI.  Cathedral   Musical  Festivals      .  .  .187 

XVII.   People  of  the  Theatre  .  .  .  .199 

Sir  Herbert  Tree — Mr  Gordon  Craig — Mr  Henry 
Arthur  Jones — Mr  Temple  Thurston— Miss  Janet 
Achurch — Miss  Horniman. 

XVIII.  Berlin  and  Some  of  its  People  .  .212 

XIX    Some  Musicians    .....        226 

Edvard  Grieg — Sir  Frederick  H.  Cowen — Dr  Hans 
Kichter — Sir  Thomas  Beecham — Sir  Charles  Santley 
— Mr  Landon  Ronald — Mr  Frederic  Austin 

XX.   Two  Chelsea   Rags,  1914  and  1918  .  .        239 

XXI.   More  Musicians  .....        246 

Professor  Granville  Bantock — Mr  Frederick  Delius — 
Mr  Joseph  Holbrooke — Dr  Walford  Davies — Dr 
Vaughan  Williams— Dr  W.  G.  McNaught— Mr  Julius 
Harrison — Mr  Rutland  Boughton — Mr  John  Coates— 
Mr  Cyril  Scott 

XXII.   People  I  would  like  to  meet     .  .  .        263 

XXIII.   Night  Clubs  .  .  .  .  .273 

Index         ......        283 


CHAPTER  I 
GEORGE  BERNARD  SHAW 

IT  was  when  I  was  a  very  young  man  indeed  that  I 
caught  and  succumbed  to  my  first  attack  of  Shaw- 
fever.  I  do  not  remember  how  I  caught  it ;  some- 
thing in  the  Manchester  air,  no  doubt,  was  responsible  for 
my  malady,  for  a  handful  of  "  intellectual  "  Manchester 
people  had  most  daringly  produced  a  complete  Shaw  play, 
and,  though  I  had  not  witnessed  the  play,  I  had  read 
it,  and  it  was  with  delight  that  I  saw  The  Manchester 
Guardian  saying  about  You  Never  Can  Tell  just  the  very 
things  I  had  myself  already  thought.  I  found  that  in  my 
suburban  circle  of  friends  I  was  regarded  as  harbouring 
"  advanced  "  ideas.  Shaw,  I  was  told,  was  "  dangerous." 
This  bucked  me  up  enormously,  and  I  thereupon  wrote  a 
long  essay  on  Ibsen's  A  DolVs  House  and,  desiring  further 
to  astonish  and  bewilder  my  friends,  got  into  communi- 
cation with  Bernard  Shaw  with  a  view  to  having  the 
essay  published  in  pamphlet  form.  When  it  was  known  in 
Manchester  suburbia  that  Shaw  had  written  to  me,  a  boy 
still  at  school,  my  friends  could  not  decide  whether  I  was 
cleverer  than  they  had  hitherto  supposed  or  Mr  Bernard 
Shaw  more  foolish  than  seemed  possible. 

I  have  never  completely  recovered  from  that  first 
attack  of  Shaw-fever  ;  like  ague,  it  sleeps  in  my  bones 
and,  from  time  to  time,  makes  its  presence  known  by 
little  convulsions  that  are  disturbing  enough  while  they 
last,  but  which  generally  die  pretty  quickly. 

It  was  in  the  middle  of  1901  that  I  wrote  to  Mr  Shaw 
about  the  particular  brand  of  socialism  from  which  at 

ii 


12  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

that  time  I  was  suffering.  It  must  have  been  a  very  raw 
and  crude  brand,  and  my  letter  to  Bernard  Shaw  must 
have  amused  him  considerably.  Certainly  his  reply  was 
most  diverting.     Here  it  is  : 

"  By  all  means  give  '  every  penny  you  can  spare  to 
those  who  are  most  in  need  of  monetary  help.'  If  you 
will  be  kind  enough  to  send  it  to  the  Treasurer  of  the 
Fabian  Society,  3  Clement's  Inn,  London,  W.C.,  you  may 
depend  upon  its  being  wanted  and  well  used.  If  you  pre- 
fer relieving  needy  persons,  I  can  give  you  the  names  and 
addresses  of  several  fathers  of  families  who  can  be  de- 
pended on  to  absorb  all  your  superfluous  resources,  how- 
ever vast  they  may  be.  By  making  yourself  poor  for 
their  sakes  you  will  have  the  satisfaction  of  adding  one 
more  poor  family  to  the  existing  mass  of  poverty  and  con- 
tributing your  utmost  to  the  ransom  which  perpetuates 
the  existing  social  system.  You  will  go  through  life  con- 
soled by  an  inexhaustible  sense  of  moral  superiority  to 
bishops  and  other  inconsistent  Christians.  And  you  will 
never  be  at  a  loss  for  friends.  Where  the  carcass  is  there 
will  the  eagles  be  gathered. 

"  A  world  of  beggars  and  almsgivers  —  beautiful 
Christian  ideal. 

"  You  are  not  a  prig — only  a  damned  fool.  A  month's 
experience  will  cure  you." 

But  though  I  think  this  letter  amusing  now,  I  am  con- 
vinced I  did  not  think  so  at  the  time  I  received  it.  I  know 
not  in  what  terms  of  pained  surprise  and  hurt  vanity  I 
replied  to  it,  but  a  few  days  later  I  received  the  following 
short  note  : — 

"  Yes  :  you  are  an  ass  ;  and  nothing  will  help  you  until 
you  get  over  that. 

"  '  A  has  money,  B  is  without.     If  A  doesn't  share  with 


GEORGE  BERNARD  SHAW  IS 

B  he  is — well,  I  call  him  a  thief.'  Just  what  an  ass  would 
do.     Pray  what  do  you  call  B  if  he  accepts  A's  bounty  ? 

'  I  strongly  recommend  you  to  become  a  stockbroker. 
You  believe  that  doing  good  means  giving  money  ;  and 
you  fancy  yourself  in  the  character  of  Lord  Bountiful 
with  a  touch  of  St  Francis. 

'  Yes,  a  hopeless  ass.  No  matter ;  embrace  your 
destiny  and  become  a  philanthropist.  It  is  not  a  bad  life 
for  people  who  are  built  that  way." 

That,  I  think,  most  effectively  closed  the  correspond- 
ence, as,  I  have  little  doubt,  it  was  intended  to  do. 

During  the  next  few  months,  having  approached  Messrs 
Greening  &  Co.,  the  publishers,  I  was  commissioned  by 
them  to  write  a  book  on  Mr  Hall  Caine  for  their  Eminent 
Writers  of  To-day  series.  The  book  being  completed  and 
published  before  the  end  of  the  year,  I  conceived  the  idea 
of  writing  another  about  Mr  Bernard  Shaw,  and  com- 
municated with  the  dramatist,  informing  him  of  my  in- 
tention and  asking  him  if  he  would  provide  me  with 
biographical  details.  This  he  consented  to  do,  and  on 
19th  December  1901  wrote  to  me  from  Piccard's  Cottage, 
Guildford,  saying  :  "  If  you  will  let  me  know  when  you 
are  coming  to  London,  I  will  make  an  appointment  with 
pleasure  and  give  you  what  help  I  can." 

A  few  weeks  later  I  went  to  Guildford,  but  I  went  there 
with  a  guilty  secret  hidden  in  my  breast.  The  secret  was 
this.  My  publishers  did  not  care  about  issuing  a  complete 
book  devoted  to  Bernard  Shaw  and  all  his  works.  I 
gathered,  much  to  my  amazement,  that  they  did  not  think 
him  of  sufficient  importance.  The  astounding  idea  was 
then  suggested  that  half  my  book  should  be  concerned 
with  Bernard  Shaw  and  the  other  half  with  Mr  George 
Moore.  Now,  at  the  time  of  my  visit  to  Guildford,  I  had 
not  imparted  this  information  to  Mr  Shaw.  I  did  not 
anticipate  that  he  would  like  the  suggestion  and  I  thought 


14  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

it  wiser  to  disclose  it  to  him  by  word  of  mouth  rather  than 
by  letter. 

I  came  upon  Mr  Shaw  taking  photographs  in  the  little 
front  garden  of  Piccard's  Cottage.  It  was  a  winter's  day 
and  an  inch  of  snow  lay  upon  the  ground  ;  yet  he  wore  no 
overcoat.  He  insisted  upon  taking  my  photograph.  He 
took  me  sitting.  He  took  me  standing.  And  when  he 
had  grown  tired  of  playing  with  his  new  toy,  he  suggested 
that  we  should  go  into  the  house. 

There  a  hideous  surprise  awaited  me.  Lying  upon  the 
sofa  of  the  study  was  an  open  copy  of  the  current  week's 
Candid  Friend,  a  most  brilliant  and  most  ruthless  paper 
edited  by  Mr  Frank  Harris. 

"  There  is  something  there,"  said  Shaw,  nodding  in  the 
direction  of  the  sofa,  "  that  should  interest  you,  I  think." 

I  sat  down,  took  up  the  paper  and  looked  at  the  open 
pages.  To  my  horror  I  saw  a  most  brutal,  murderously 
clever  full-page  caricature  of  Mr  Hall  Caine  on  one  side, 
and  on  the  other  a  long  and  most  hostile  review  of  my 
stupid  little  book  on  the  famous  novelist.  .  .  .  Shaw, 
tall  and  erect,  stood  looking  at  me  a  little  malignantly, 
and,  on  the  instant,  I  was  on  my  guard. 

I  read  the  review  word  by  word  and  examined  the  cari- 
cature very  closely.  The  article  was  amazingly  good, 
but,  as  I  read  it,  I  did  so  wish  it  had  been  written  about  a 
book  by  somebody  else.  Frank  Harris  himself,  I  think, 
had  written  the  article  and  Frank  Richardson  had  drawn 
the  caricature.     I  looked  up  at  Shaw  and  smiled. 

"  Awfully  good,  don't  you  think  ?  "  I  said. 

He  nodded,  and  by  his  manner  seemed  to  express 
approval  of  the  way  in  which  I  had  come  through  the 
ordeal.  He  showed  me  some  photographs  he  had  taken — 
not  very  good  photographs.  One,  taken  by  his  wife,  I 
think,  showed  Bernard  Shaw  with  his  arm  round  a  female 
scarecrow  ;  leaning  slightly  forward,  he  was  leering  at  it 
with  narrowed  eyes. 


GEORGE  BERNARD  SHAW  15 

During  lunch  Shaw  devoured  a  large  number  of  vege- 
tarian dishes  and  drank  water,  whilst  Mrs  Shaw  and  I  ate 
meat  and  drank  wine.  It  was,  I  think,  the  mellowing 
influence  of  a  basin  of  raisins  that  loosed  his  tongue  and 
set  him  talking  without  cessation.  He  spoke  of  Karl 
Marx  and  Granville  Barker,  of  Mrs  Annie  Besant  and 
Janet  Achurch,  of  Mr  Sidney  Webb  and  the  Fabian 
Society,  of  Morocco  and  Ancoats,  of  Shorthand  and 
Wagner,  of  The  Manchester  Guardian  and  H.  G.  Wells  .  .  . 
in  a  word,  of  Shakespeare  and  the  musical  glasses. 

I  rather  gathered  that  he  had  "  got  over  "  Karl  Marx 
years  ago,  and  I  inferred  that  he  considered  the  work  of 
this  writer  indispensable  for  young  cubs  to  sharpen  their 
teeth  upon,  but  that  he  was  by  no  means  the  last  word  in 
socialism.  I  think  he  thought  that  Bernard  Shaw  was 
the  last  word.  For  Granville  Barker  he  had  even  then  a 
great  regard,  and,  speaking  of  him,  he  offered  me  some 
cider,  a  bottle  of  which  Barker  had  drunk  some  days 
previously  ;  as  he  offered  the  cider  he  said  that  Barker 
had  "  ridden  over  " — whence,  I  know  not — on  his  bicycle 
and  that  the  cider  had  made  him  half  tipsy.  .  .  .  The 
thought  of  Mrs  Annie  Besant  appeared  to  afford  him  vast 
amusement,  but  he  spoke  in  terms  of  high  regard  of  Janet 
Achurch. 

''  But  she  uses  her  voice  wrongly.  It  is  quite  the  finest 
voice  on  the  stage  and,  perhaps  because  she  knows  it  is  so 
fine,  she  is  always  trying  experiments  with  it.  For  a 
Shakespeare  passage,  for  example,  she  will  plan  out  what 
I  may  call  a  scheme  of  sound  ;  sound  that  will  rise  and  fall 
with  the  passion  and  decline  of  the  words,  that  will  in- 
tensify and  grow  dim  as  the  mood  waxes  and  wanes.  But 
the  scheme,  the  design — for  it  is  a  kind  of  design — is 
nearly  always  too  elaborate,  too  involved.  It  is  full  of 
detail,  and  the  detail  is  apt  to  become  more  prominent 
than  the  general  outline.  She  will  start  off  most  magnifi- 
cently, lose  herself  a  little,  recover  herself,  lose  herself 


16  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

again,  and  then  abruptly  strike  a  woefully  wrong  note. 
Perhaps  her  ear  is  wrong  ;  perhaps  excitement  betrays 
her.  But,  with  all  her  faults — and  even  her  faults  are 
more  interesting  than  other  people's  excellencies — she 
remains  a  superb  actress." 

Of  Mr  Sidney  Webb  I  remember  nothing  that  he  said, 
nor  have  any  of  the  loving  words  he  spoke  of  the  Fabian 
Society  remained  in  my  memory.  He  spoke  of  it  a  great 
deal,  both  at  lunch  and  during  our  subsequent  walk,  but 
somehow  or  other  the  Fabian  Society  has  always  seemed 
to  me  a  bloodless  and  dull  sort  of  institution,  and  while  he 
talked  about  it  my  thoughts  wandered,  and  I  mused  rather 
sadly  over  the  psychology  of  this  man  whose  moral 
earnestness  was  so  much  greater  than  my  own. 

But  I  pricked  up  my  ears  when  the  word  "  Morocco  " 
fell  from  his  lips,  though  in  the  event  he  said  very  little 
about  it.  I  found  he  had  no  great  belief  in  the  value  of 
travel  as  a  means  of  education,  an  expander  of  the  mind. 
He  himself  had  never  travelled  ;  places  and  countries  so 
precisely  fulfilled  all  your  expectations  that,  really,  what 
was  the  use  of  going  to  see  them  ?  Facts,  people  and 
ideas  :    nothing  else  aroused  his  curiosity. 

Of  shorthand  he  said  .  .  .  well,  you  don't  particularly 
want  to  know  what  he  said  of  shorthand,  do  you  ?  And 
in  The  Perfect  Wagnerite  he  has  said  all  that  it  is  necessary 
for  him  to  say  about  Wagner.  Last  of  all  comes  H.  G. 
Wells. 

Now,  I  have  not  the  remotest  idea  what  Shaw  thinks  of 
Wells  in  these  days,  yet  I  would  give  a  good  deal  to  know. 
But  sixteen  years  ago  the  older  man  had  for  the  younger 
an  almost  reverential  admiration.  At  the  time  of  my 
visit  to  Shaw  one  of  Wells'  books  was  appearing  serially  in, 
I  think,  The  Fortnightly  Review.  Wells  was  busy  looking 
into  the  future,  and  the  future  that  he  saw  seemed,  in 
some  respects,  so  disagreeable  yet  so  likely  that  Shaw 
was  dismayed  at  the  prospect. 


GEORGE  BERNARD  SHAW        17 

"  A  great  man,  Wells,"  said  Shaw  ;  "do  you  know 
anything  about  him  ?  " 

I  told  him  the  little  I  knew  and,  as  we  had  finished 
lunch,  I  asked  Mrs  Shaw's  permission  to  light  a 
cigarette. 

Almost  immediately  after,  we  started  on  our  walk. 

Never  shall  I  forget  that  terrible  walk.  I  believed  then, 
as  I  believe  now,  that  Shaw  was  deliberately  pitting  his 
powers  of  endurance  against  my  own — the  powers  of  en- 
durance of  a  middle-aged  vegetarian  against  those  of  a 
young  meat-eater.  He  walked  with  a  long,  easy  stride, 
swinging  his  arms,  breathing  deeply  through  his  wide 
nostrils.  His  pace,  which  never  for  a  moment  did  he 
attempt  to  accommodate  to  mine,  was  at  least  five  miles 
an  hour.  He  forgot,  or  he  did  not  choose  to  remember, 
that  I  had  that  morning  travelled  by  the  slow  midnight 
train  from  Manchester,  that  I  had  crossed  London,  that  I 
had  reached  Guildford  by  a  weary  Sunday  train  from 
Waterloo,  and  that  I  had  just  eaten  an  enormous  lunch. 
I  panted  and  struggled  half  a  pace  behind  him.  I  became 
stupendously  hot.  I  made  unexpected  and  unathletic 
sounds,  like  a  man  who  is  being  smothered.  Blissfully 
unconscious  of  all  this  was  Shaw.  ...  I  wonder  ?  .  .  . 
No  ;  blissfully  conscious  of  all  this  was  Shaw. 

He  talked  steadily  the  whole  time,  but  I  was  suffering 
from  an  inhibition  of  all  my  mental  faculties.  Yet,  at  the 
back  of  my  mind,  I  kept  saying  to  myself :  "  You  know, 
you  have  not  yet  told  him  that  he  is  to  share  your  book 
with  George  Moore."  And  each  time  I  told  myself  that, 
I  shuddered  somewhat. 

It  was  not  until  we  had  neared  Mr  G.  F.  Watts'  house 
that  Shaw  moderated  his  pace  a  little. 

"  That,"  said  he,  in  a  curiously  low  voice — the  kind  of 
voice  one  uses  in  churches — "  that  is  where  G.  F.  Watts 
lives." 

And  he  pointed  to  some  high  chimneys  that  overtopped 

B 


18  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

a  belt  of  trees,  and  stopped  and  gazed.  But  I  was  in  no 
mood  of  reverence  and,  though  I  have  frequently  struggled 
to  induce  a  feeling  of  rapture  when  gazing  upon  the  large 
canvases  of  Watts,  I  have  never  been  able  to  do  so.  So 
I  pulled  out  my  handkerchief  and  wiped  my  perspiring 
forehead. 

"  Hot  ?  "  asked  Shaw  grimly. 

"  Of  course  I'm  hot.     Aren't  you  ?  " 

"  Warm.     Just  nicely  warm." 

Presently  we  came  to  a  tall  tower  of  terra- cotta  bricks 
which,  Shaw  told  me,  had  been  erected  by  the  villagers 
under  the  direction  and  at  the  instigation  of  Watts  him- 
self. We  stopped  in  front  of  this  and,  as  it  was  one  of  the 
"  sights  "  of  the  district,  I  felt  that  I  was  expected  to  say 
something  wise  or,  at  all  events,  something  complimentary 
about  it.     I  could  say  neither. 

"  Which  do  people  imagine  it  to  be — useful  or  orna- 
mental ?  "  I  asked. 

"  I  wonder,"  said  he. 

"  For  it  is  neither,"  I  ventured. 

But  his  thoughts  were  otherwhere,  for  he  began  a  long, 
technical  exposition  on  the  art  of  making  bricks  and  tiles. 
His  talk  became  art-and-crafty.  I  was  carried  back  to 
my  childhood  days,  my  kindergarten  days.  I  heard  the 
name  of  William  Morris  and  I  sighed  most  profoundly. 

Shaw  won  that  walk  by  a  neck.  Having  reached 
Piccard's  Cottage,  he  put  me  in  a  kind  of  conservatory, 
gave  me  a  blanket  and  a  deck  chair  and  told  me  to  go 
to  sleep.     But  already  I  was  asleep.   .   .   . 

When  I  awoke  it  was  quite  dark,  and,  feeling  rather 
miserable,  I  groped  my  way  back  to  the  house.  There  I 
found  Mr  and  Mrs  Shaw  in  the  study,  she  frowning  at  her 
desk,  he  standing  on  the  hearthrug  and  looking  at  her 
most  quizzically. 

"  Well,  how  much  is  it  ?  "  she  asked.  "  Four  times 
into  two  hundred.    The   cheque  must  go  by  to-night's 


GEORGE  BERNARD  SHAW  19 

post.  I've  done  the  sum  three  times,  and  on  each  occasion 
I've  got  a  different  answer." 

"Is  it  two  hundred  pence  or  two  hundred  pounds  ?  ' 

"  Don't  be  absurd,  George.  Even  you  know  that  you 
can't  get  a  furnished  house  like  this  for  two  hundred  pence 
a  year." 

"  Four  times  into  two  hundred — let  me  see — fifty. 
Yes,  fifty.     You  can  safely  write  down  fifty  pounds." 

That  little  incident  safely  over,  we  turned  to  tea. 

I  induced  Shaw  to  talk  about  his  own  work,  and  I 
quickly  discovered  that,  unlike  most  authors,  he  had  no 
feeling  of  bitterness  that  he  had  had  to  spend  years  in  hard 
work  before  he  won  public  recognition. 

"  A  writer  of  originality  must  expect  to  have  to  wait. 
If  a  writer  is  acclaimed  immediately — I  mean  a  writer  on 
social  and  artistic  subjects — he  may  be  pretty  sure  that 
he  is  saying  things  that  have  been  said  before.  He  may 
be  saying  them  better  than  anybody  else  ;  nevertheless, 
they  are  the  same  things.  My  own  success  has  been 
gained,  and  is  very  largely  maintained,  by  the  force  of 
my  personality  and  by  the  tradition  about  myself  that 
has  gradually  grown  up  in  the  mind  of  the  public.  For 
example,  if  I  were  to  write  an  article  and  give  it  to  you  to 
copy  out  and  offer  to  editors  in  your  own  name,  you  being 
the  professional  author,  I  doubt  very  much  if  a  single 
editor  would  look  at  it  twice.  A  good  deal,  you  see,  is  in 
a  name." 

It  was  when  Mrs  Shaw,  having  sipped  her  tea,  had  left 
the  room,  that  I  broached  the  subject  of  my  book. 

"  Publishers  arc  curious  people,"  I  remarked  medita- 
tively. 

He  sat  silent. 

"  My  own  publishers  in  particular.  They  are  now 
fighting  shy  of  a  book  solely  about  you." 

I  paused  and  glanced  at  him.  But  he  was  gazing  at  me 
with  eyes  of  a  mild  malice  and  he  was  very  silent. 


20  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

J'  Yes,"  I  continued.  "  To  put  Jit  bluntly,  they  think 
that  a  book  solely  about  you  would  not  be  a  success.  So 
that  they  propose  the  first  half  of  the  book  should  be 
concerned  with  you  and  the  second  half  with  George 
Moore." 

"  And  the  title  ?  "   he  asked  gently. 

"  Why  ?     What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

'  Well,  don't  you  think  The  Two  Mad  Irishmen  would 
go  rather  well  ?  " 

I  floundered.  If  he  was  going  to  be  witty  or  sarcastic, 
or  anything  horrid  of  that  kind,  I  should  be  nowhere  at 
all.  To  cover  my  confusion — and,  as  it  chanced,  to  make 
that  confusion  worse — I  began  to  talk  very  rapidly. 

"  I  know  their  suggestion  is  awfully  stupid,  but  then 
publishers  do  make  stupid  suggestions.  That,  I  suppose, 
is  why  they  are  so  successful.  Of  course,  George  Moore 
and  yourself " 

"  Oh,  George  has  worked  awfully  hard,"  said  Shaw 
reasonably.  '  I  don't  suppose  there  is  a  more  conscien- 
tious artist  living.  He  has  dug  out  of  himself  everything 
there  was  to  be  got.  No  one  could  have  tried  more.  As 
a  worker,  George  is  magnificent.     But,  really,  when  you 

suggest  a  book " 

'  No  !     No  !     I  don't  suggest  it  for  one  moment,"  I 
interrupted. 

"  Then  what  are  we  discussing  ?  " 
'  Well,    in    the    first    instance,    my    publishers    sug- 
gested  " 

"  Ha  !  '  In  the  first  instance  !  '  No  ;  it  really  cannot 
be  done.  If  you  wish  to  write  the  book  nobody,  of 
course,  can  stop  you,  but  if  you  do  you  must  not  expect 
me  to  countenance  it.  I  shall  wash  my  hands  of  the 
whole  business." 

And,  in  spite  of  some  further  conversation,  that  re- 
mained his  unshakable  attitude. 

An  hour  later  he  walked  with  me  down  to  the  station, 


GEORGE  BERNARD   SHAW  21 

I  resolving  all  the  way  that  I  would  persuade  my  publisher 
to  accept  two  books.  Shaw  droned  on  about  Sidney  Webb 
and  the  Fabian  Society.  ...  So  many  people  have 
talked  to  me  of  Sidney  Webb.  I  wonder  why.  I  have 
heard  Sidney  Webb  speak  ;  he  knows  all  about  figures 
and  dates  and  money  and  wages,  and  so  on.  .  .  .  But  of 
human  nature  he  knows  nothing  ;  he  knows  less  than  a 
child,  for  a  child  has  at  least  intuition.  Figures  don't  go 
very  far,  do  they  ?  Of  course,  by  manipulation,  you  can 
make  them  go  all  the  way.  .  .  . 

But,  as  I  was  saying,  Shaw  talked  about  Fabianism  and 
Webbism  all  the  way  to  the  station. 

He  was  good  enough  to  wait  till  the  train  started,  and 
the  last  I  saw  of  him  as  I  leant  through  the  window  was  a 
long,  lean  figure  standing  under  a  lamp.  The  figure  wore 
no  overcoat,  but  I  noticed,  even  when  a  hundred  yards 
separated  us,  a  pair  of  thick,  home-knitted  woollen 
gloves.  .  .  . 

P.S. — The  book  was  never  written,  for  my  publishers 
could  not  be  persuaded  to  take  G.B.S.  at  his  own  or  my 
estimate. 

Mr  George  Moore,  on  being  approached,  wrote  me  from 
Dublin,  saying,  inconsequent ly  enough,  that  he  had  never 
asked  anybody  to  write  about  him  nor  had  he  ever  asked 
anybody  to  refrain  from  doing  so.  On  the  whole,  he 
thought  it  better  that  if  A  (myself)  wished  to  write  about 
B  (Mr  George  Moore),  it  would  be  an  excellent  arrange- 
ment, provided  that  : 

(1)  A  was  an  intimate  friend  of  B's,  or 

(2)  A  was  a  complete  stranger  to  B. 

I  was  left,  most  courteously,  to  infer  that  I  (A),  being  a 
complete  stranger,  had  better  remain  so. 
I  did. 
I  have  done. 


CHAPTER  II 
MISCELLANEOUS 

Mrs  Annie  Besant — Marcus  Stone — Lloyd  George— Bishop 
Welldon — Dr  Walford  Davies 

MRS  ANNIE  BESANT,  like  her  Himalayan 
Mahatmas,  is  lofty,  remote,  and  difficult  of 
access.  Only  once  was  I  admitted  to  The 
Presence.  What  drove  me  there  was,  first  of  all,  curiosity, 
and,  secondly,  a  feeling  of  great  respect  for  her  which  I 
had  retained  from  boyhood.  I  admired  her  courage,  her 
independence,  her  friendship  with  and  loyalty  to  Brad- 
laugh  ;  moreover,  I  have  always  held  in  high  regard  those 
who,  from  temperamental  or  spiritual  discord  with  their 
fellows,  have  kicked  over  the  intellectual  traces  and  run 
a  race  of  their  own.  Annie  Besant,  whatever  else  she 
may  be,  is  a  woman  of  courage,  of  vast  resource  and  of 
indomitable  will. 

But  alas  !  my  hour's  interview  with  her  did  much  to 
sap  and  destroy  my  devotion.  First  of  all,  I  must  say 
that,  previous  to  meeting  her,  I  had  been  for  a  short  time 
an  Associate  of  the  Theosophical  Society.  I  was  never 
admitted  to  membership  of  that  body  because  I  never 
claimed  the  privilege  ;  my  associateship  originated  in  my 
desire  to  hear  Orage  lecture  and  in  my  anxiety  to  study 
some  curious  and  not  unintelligent  people  at  first  hand. 
Nothing  is  at  once  more  distressing  and  more  repellent  to 
me  than  affectation,  and  the  affectation  of  most  members 
of  the  Theosophical  Society  whom  I  met  was  really  appal- 
ling. The  people  were  also  grotesque.  The  men  had 
dyspepia  and  bald  heads,  and  the  women  wore  djibbahs 

22 


MISCELLANEOUS  23 

and  a  look  of  condescending  benevolence.  They  read 
Madame  Blavatsky  assiduously  and  gabbled  nonsense  to 
each  other. 

Mrs  Besant  made  an  appointment  for  me  one  Saturday 
afternoon  at  the  Midland  Hotel,  Manchester.  I  was 
shown  into  a  private  sitting-room  which,  upon  entering,  I 
took  to  be  empty.  But,  after  a  few  moments  had  passed, 
I  observed  a  snake-like  movement  in  a  corner  of  the  room, 
and  a  thin,  pale  lady  advanced  languidly  towards  me, 
holding  out  a  lifeless  hand  which  hung  nervelessly  at  her 
wrist.  I  glanced  at  her  in  surprise  and  noticed  that  she 
wore  a  djibbah,  a  long  necklace  of  yellow  stones,  a  most 
insincere  smile,  and  vegetarian  boots. 

"Mrs  Besant  will  be  with' you  shortly,"  she  said, 
scrutinising  me  carefully.  Having,  as  it  appeared  to  me, 
taken  a  mental  inventory  of  my  clothing,  she  glided  to  the 
door  and,  smiling  at  me  once  more,  disappeared.  I  took 
her  to  be  a  sort  of  bodyguard. 

The  entrance  of  Mrs  Besant  was  brisk  and  business- 
like. She  had  a  firm  handshake  ;  she  looked  a  capable 
business  woman — a  woman  accustomed  to  issuing  com- 
mands and  having  them  implicitly  obeyed.  Of  medium 
height,  she  was  plump  and  heavily  built  ;  her  pale  face, 
surmounted  by  perfectly  white  hair,  was  of  an  intensely 
serious  cast,  and  I  saw  no  humour  in  her  eye. 

Our  conversation,  a  little  halting  at  first,  began  to  flow 
quite  easily  when  I  mentioned  her  Autobiography  and 
asked  her  why  she  had  not  issued  a  second  volume. 

"  You  see,"  I  said,  "  it  stops  just  at  the  most  interesting 
period  of  your  life.  You  have  never  stated  fully  how  you 
became  convinced  of  the  truth  of  theosophical  doctrines. 
I,  for  one,  cannot  understand  your  position." 

"  It  isn't  very  necessary  that  you  should,"  she  observed 
calmly. 

"  Who  am  I,  you  mean,  that  I  should  presume  to 
understand  you  ?  " 


24  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

"  Yes ;  perhaps  I  meant  something  like  that.  People 
who  are  intended  to  understand  me  will  understand  me. 
The  rest  don't  matter.  In  any  case,  this  is  not  a  subject 
that  has  much  interest  for  me." 

"  But,  surely,  if  you  think  you  have  discovered  the 
truth,  you  are  anxious  to  spread  it  ?  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
I  know,  of  course,  that  you  are  anxious  on  this  point,  or 
you  would  not  lecture  and  write." 

"  You  are  quite  right,"  she  said,  leaning  forward  a 
little.  "  I  spread  the  truth,  but,  then,  the  truth  is  not 
for  everybody.     Much  of  it  falls  on  stony  ground." 

"  And  it  will  continue  to  do  so,"  I  half  interrupted, 
"  until  you  have  proved  that  the  alleged  miracles  of 
Madame  Blavatsky  are  really  true.  Was  Madame 
Blavatsky  a  charlatan  or  was  she  not  ? — on  the  answer 
to  that  question  all  modern  theosophy  stands  or 
falls." 

She  smiled  at  this  attack  of  mine  and  at  the  violence 
of  it. 

"  It  is  proved,"  she  answered  ;  "  it  is  proved  up  to  the 
hilt.     I  and  thousands  of  others  are  entirely  satisfied." 

"  And  Madame  Coulomb  ? — was  she  a  mountebank  ? 
And  were  the  mysteries  of  Adyar  frauds  ?  " 

"  Everyone  is  entitled  to  his  own  opinion  about  those 
matters.  I  have  my  own  view  ;  you,  no  doubt,  have 
yours.  And  now,"  she  added,  a  little  wearily,  "  let  us 
have  tea  and  talk  about  the  weather." 

Such  was  the  substance  of  our  talk.  I  gathered  the 
impression,  right  or  wrong,  that  Mrs  Besant  had  brought 
herself  to  a  state  of  mind  when  no  evidence,  however 
strong,  that  was  opposed  to  her  beliefs  would  shake  her 
faith  for  a  moment.  She  desired  most  fervently  to  be- 
lieve in  the  bona  fides  of  Madame  Blavatsky,  and  believe 
she  did.  The  Theosophical  Society  does  not — or  it  did 
not  in  those  days — demand  from  its  members  the  accept- 
ance of   any  particular  doctrine ;  you  could   accept  as 


MISCELLANEOUS  25 

little  or  as  much  as  you  wanted  and  still  remain  one  of  the 
faithful.     But  Mrs  Besant  went  the  whole  hog. 

Bernard  Shaw  once  told  me  that,  meeting  Mrs  Besant 
years  after  the  Bradlaugh  days,  he  said  to  her,  half 
jokingly  : 

'  You  surely  don't  believe  one  quarter  of  the  rubbish 
you  write  and  talk,  do  you  ?  " 

Her  answer  was  to  look  at  him  coldly  and  turn  on  her 
heel.  Which,  after  all,  was  perhaps  the  wisest  answer 
she  could  give. 

•  •••••  •  • 

A  kindly  old  man  took  me  to  his  studio  and  began  to 
talk  of  Dickens.  He  spoke  of  those  Victorian  days  as 
though  they  were  the  greatest  that  have  ever  been.  He 
knew  Anthony  Trollope  and  all  his  works  and  looked 
askance  at  me  because  Bar  Chester  Towers  was  the  only 
Trollope  book  I  had  read. 

And  then  he  took  me  to  an  easel  and  showed  me  his 
latest  work — a  "pretty-pretty"  picture  of  a  girl  in  a 
garden  ;  the  sort  of  picture  that,  according  to  my  mood, 
either  excites  my  laughter  or  throws  me  into  a  fury  of  rage. 

But  Marcus  Stone  was  very  old,  and  his  ideals,  being 
those  of  yesteryear,  left  me  untouched.  The  young  can 
never  understand  the  old  and,  as  I  listened  to  him  talking 
of  art  and  literature  and  life,  I  told  myself  that  we  to-day 
are  centuries  away  from  the  mid-Victorian  days.  If  he  had 
not  been  so  old  and  kindly  I  should  have  wished  to  say  : 

"  Do  you  want  to  know  what  all  you  people  were  like 
fifty  years  ago  ? — well,  read  Punch  for,  say,  the  year 
1870." 

But  though  my  friends  tell  me  that  I  am  brutal,  and  I 
know  I  am  ill-mannered,  I  could  not  find  it  in  my  heart  to 
speak  those  words. 

•  ••••••  • 

The  amiable  but  rather  weak  Mr  P.  W.  Wilson,  who 
used  to  do  "  Lobby  "  work  for  The  Daily  News,  having 


26  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

declined  a  whisky,  entered  into  conversation  with  me  at 
the  hotel  at  Criccieth.  He  told  me  that  till  that  morning 
he  had  been  staying  with  Mr  Lloyd  George,  but  that,  Mr 
Masterman,  Sir  Rufus  Isaacs  and  other  people  of  import- 
ance having  turned  up,  he  himself  had  had  to  seek  refuge 
in  the  hotel. 

The  occasion  of  the  assembly  of  these  wits  was  the 
opening  of  an  institute  at  Llanystumdwy,  the  little  village 
near  Criccieth,  where  the  Prime  Minister  spent  his  child- 
hood days.  Mr  Lloyd  George  had  given  the  institute  to 
the  inhabitants  of  the  village  and  was  himself  to  open  it 
publicly  the  following  day. 

Mr  Wilson's  amiability  and  his  self-satisfaction  at 
enjoying  the  friendship  of  Mr  Lloyd  George  rather  put 
me  out,  and  I  felt  a  strong  desire  to  disturb  his  sleek 
smoothness. 

"  I  hope,"  said  I,  "  that  the  suffragettes  will  not  be 
brutally  treated  to-morrow,  but  I  am  very  much  afraid 
they  will." 

"  Of  course,"  observed  P.  W.  W.,  between  draws  at  his 
pipe,  "  if  they  create  a  disturbance  here,  in  the  very  midst 
of  Lloyd  George's  worshippers,  they  must  expect  a  stiff 
time  of  it." 

"  Yes,  and  they  will  get  it.  The  organised  gang  of 
roughs  from  Portmadoc  who  are  coming  here  to-morrow 
armed  with  clubs  will  see  to  that.  The  uneducated  Welsh, 
their  passions  once  aroused,  are  little  better  than 
savages.  ..."  I  hesitated  a  moment.  Then,  as  im- 
pressively as  I  could,  I  added  :  "  We  must  prepare  our- 
selves for  dreadful  sights  to-morrow.  I  should  not  be 
very  surprised  if  one  or  two  women  are  not  torn  limb  from 
limb.  And  if  they  are,  the  responsibility  will,  in  my 
opinion,  rest  mainly  with  Mr  Lloyd  George  himself." 

P.  W.  Wilson  took  his  pipe  from  his  mouth  and  looked 
at  me  with  some  concern. 

"  How  do  you  make  that  out  ?  "  he  asked. 


MISCELLANEOUS  27 

'  Well,  hitherto  he  has  not  done  very  much  to  soothe 
the  irritation  of  meetings  he  has  addressed  which  have 
been  interrupted  by  suffragettes.  Lloyd  George  has  not 
very  much  magnanimity.  Moreover,  in  this  particular 
matter,  he  evinces  but  a  shallow  knowledge  of  human 
nature.  He  would  win  the  approval  of  all  men  of  generous 
and  chivalrous  natures  if " 

I  allowed  my  voice  to  die  away  to  nothing. 

Wilson,  really  disturbed,  moved  a  little  uneasily  on  his 
chair,  rose,  scratched  his  head,  sat  down  again  and  sighed. 
'  I  must  tell  him,"  said  he.  '  I  must  warn  him  that, 
at  the  very  beginning  of  his  speech,  he  must  appeal  to  the 
audience  to  deal  gently  with  any  interrupters.  .  .  .  Torn 
limb  from  limb.  .  .  .  You  really  think  that  ?  " 

I  felt  a  little  sorry  to  have  disturbed  him  so  much, 
and  yet  I  knew  that  I  very  much  preferred  an  anxious, 
harassed  Wilson  to  a  Wilson  who  was  smooth  and  sleek. 

Next  morning  at  breakfast  he  was  again  smooth  and 
self-satisfied. 

"  I  have  seen  him,"  he  whispered,  like  a  conspirator  ; 
"  I  have  seen  him.  It  is  arranged.  Everything  is  all 
right." 

Later  on  that  morning  I  was  myself  received  by  Mr 
Lloyd  George  in  his  house.  I  went  prejudiced  against 
him  and  determined  at  all  hazards  not  to  allow  myself  to 
be  won  over  by  that  charm  of  manner  of  which  I  had 
heard  so  much. 

But  in  five  minutes  I  had  succumbed.  He  has  a 
wonderful  gift  of  making  you  feel  that  he  thinks  you  are 
the  most  interesting  and  most  intelligent  person  he  has 
ever  met.  What  he  really  does  think,  I  suppose,  is  that 
you  (of  course,  I  don't  mean  you  ;  I  mean  myself)  are  an 
unmitigated  bore,  and  while  his  eyes  are  smiling  at  you  he 
is  really  saying  to  himself :  '  Why  doesn't  the  fellow 
go  ?  .  .  ."  Yes,  he  has  charm.  He  does  not  fuss  and  he 
is  not  over-emphatic  in  his  manner.     And  he  is  a  most 


28  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

deferential  listener.  He  will  even  ask  you  your  opinion 
about  matters  of  which  he  knows  ten  times  more  than 
yourself,  and  he  will  do  you  the  honour  of  arguing  with 
you. 

That  afternoon,  at  the  formal  ceremony  of  "  opening  " 
the  institute,  my  warning  concerning  the  suffragettes  was 
nearly  prophetic.  Mr  Lloyd  George,  of  course,  did  all  in 
his  power  to  quell  the  mob's  anger,  but  the  women  were 
violently  assaulted,  their  breasts  beaten,  their  clothes 
ripped  from  their  backs,  their  hair  torn  by  the  roots  from 
their  heads.  .  .  .  On  the  edge  of  the  melee  I  saw  P.  W. 
Wilson  standing  deploring  it. 

•  •  •  •  •  ••  • 

It  has  always  seemed  to  me  an  extraordinary  thing 
that,  in  company  with  Dr  Walford  Davies,  I  should  have 
been  asked  some  years  ago  to  be  a  guest  at  the  annual 
dinner  of  the  Church  Diocesan  Music  Society.  I  am 
always  ready  for  adventure,  of  however  hazardous  a 
nature,  so  I  accepted  the  invitation  even  after  I  had  been 
told  that  a  speech  was  expected  from  me. 

Bishop  Welldon,  arriving  late — in  fact,  I  believe  he  had 
dined  elsewhere — plumped  himself  on  a  chair  next  to  me, 
and  immediately  began  to  dominate  everything  and  every- 
body within  a  radius  of  twenty  yards.  He  is  one  of  those 
distressing  people  who  will  be  jocular.  And  his  jocularity 
is  rather  noisy.  He  laughed  a  great  deal  and  rubbed  his 
hands  together.  And  he  asked  me  a  question  and  then 
asked  me  another  before  I  had  had  time  to  answer  the 
first.  And,  really,  he  did  talk  so  awfully  loudly.  ...  I 
had  come  across  him  before  in  trams  and  shops  and 
places  of  that  kind,  and  it  was  always  the  same  ;  he 
invariably  talked  at  you.  .  .  .  Even  in  the  Manchester 
Cathedral,  where  Dr  Kendrick  Pyne  introduced  me  to 
him,  he  shouted  at  me  and  never  allowed  me  to  finish  a 
sentence. 

But  I  perceive  that  I  am  becoming  petulant,  and  I 


MISCELLANEOUS  29 

ought  not  to  do  so  for,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  dinner  was 
a  screamingly  funny  affair.  I  had  prepared  a  fierce  and 
warlike  speech,  a  speech  attacking  the  Society  whose 
food  I  had  just  eaten  and  whose  wine  was  still  warm  in  my 
veins.  I  am,  I  suppose,  quite  the  worst  speaker  in  the 
world  ;  so  I  had  memorised  my  speech  and,  so  good  I 
thought  it  that  I  had  vastly  enjoyed  doing  so.  But 
alas  !  when  the  minute  drew  near  for  me  to  deliver  it,  I 
found  myself  in  an  atmosphere  of  such  conviviality,  such 
kindness,  such  flattering  attention,  that  I  could  not  find 
it  in  my  heart  to  deliver  the  words  I  had  prepared  and 
memorised.  Yet  an  impromptu  speech  of  a  different 
tenor  was  impossible.  I  simply  hadn't  the  talent  to  do  it. 
My  name  was  called  and  I  rose  to  my  feet. 
.  My  speech  was  offensive  :  it  was  meant  to  be.  But 
offensive  though  I  knew  it  to  be,  I  did  not  know  how  offen- 
sive it  really  was.  I  mentioned  the  name  of  Wagner 
and,  as  I  did  so,  I  saw  Dr  Walford  Davies  shudder 
most  violently.  Though  I  attacked  the  Church  for  her 
unimaginative  attitude  to  music,  though  I  stamped  on 
hymns  and  hymn  tunes,  though  I  slanged  the  micro- 
scopic brains  of  many  organists,  though  I  said  that  nearly 
all  Cathedral  music  was  to  me  anathema  maranatha, 
nobody  except  Bishop  Welldon  appeared  to  care  in  the 
least,  and  he  did  not  care  half  so  much  as  poor,  virginal 
Walford  Davies,  who,  at  the  name  of  Wagner,  shuddered 
and  put  his  glass  aside. 

Davies  spoke  :  earnestly,  like  St  Francis  ;  frenziedly, 
like  Savonarola  ;  passionately,  like  Venus  ...  no  !  no  ! 
no  !  .  .  .  passionately,  like  St  Paul.  Eschew  Wagner  ! 
That's  what  it  all  came  to.  ...  "  Eschew.  ..."  Hate 
the  sin,  love  the  sinner,  but  most  certainly  "  eschew  ' 
both.  His  cheeks  were  very  white,  his  lips  pale.  He 
trembled  a  little.  Wagner,  it  appeared,  was  one  of  the 
devils.  Ab-so-lute-ly  pernicious.  .  .  .  Have  you  ever 
noticed  how  accurately  you  can  estimate  a  man  by  his 


30  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

adjectives  ?  Dr  Walford  Davies  used  "  pernicious " 
eleven  times,  "  poisonous  "  twice,  "  very-much-to-be-dis- 
trusted "  once,  "  naughty  "  once  ("  this  naughty  man  !  " 
was  the  phrase),  "  unlicensed  "  thrice,  and  "  immoral  " 
fifteen  times.  ...  I  must  say,  en  passant,  that  I  am  writ- 
ing from  memory  and  that  my  memory  for  figures  is 
atrocious ;  still,  these  adjectives,  collectively  represent 
the  impression  his  speech  left  on  my  mind. 

After  dinner  (well,  neither  after  nor  before  dinner)  one 
does  not  ardently  desire  a  speech  of  that  kind.  It  fell 
flat.  A  fat  organist  from  Bolton  (or  was  it  Bacup  ?) 
winked  me  a  fat  wink.  The  man  on  my  left — a  young 
musical  doctor  from  Cambridge — dug  his  elbow  into  my 
ribs. 

And  then  came  Bishop  Welldon's  speech.  He  was 
extraordinarily  clever.  He  said  some  of  the  most  cutting 
things  imaginable.  He  was  scathing.  He  hurt  me. 
Reaching  for  my  glass,  I  hastily  swallowed  the  large 
brandy  I  had  been  careful  to  ask  for  beforehand.  He 
made  epigrams,  epigrams  adapted  most  skilfully  from  the 
writings  of  his  friend,  John  Oliver  Hobbes.  And  he  spoke 
so  well  ;  he  had  presence  ;  he  had  a  manner  ;  he,  like  Sir 
Willoughby  Patterne,  had  a  leg  .  .  .  and  a  leg  that  was 
gaitered.  Perhaps  it  was  the  gaiters  that  did  it.  One 
has  heard  a  good  deal  lately  about  the  Hidden  Hand,  but 
what  about  the  influence  of  the  Hidden  Leg  ?  The  leg 
hidden  under  the  table  ?  The  gaitered  leg  hidden  under 
the  table  ?  Most  of  the  diners,  remembering  that  Bishop 
Welldon  was  indeed  a  bishop — though,  truly,  only,  so  to 
speak,  an  ex-bishop,  and  an  ex-bishop  only  of  Calcutta, 
and  now  possessing  only  the  powers  of  a  dean  (whatever 
those  powers  may  be !) — most  of  the  diners,  I  say,  recollect- 
ing that  Bishop  Welldon  was  indeed  a  bishop,  looked  at 
me  with  eyes  of  faint  hostility  or  did  not  look  at  me 
at  all. 

I  was  very  young,  said  Bishop  Welldon.     I  was  en- 


MISCELLANEOUS  31 


thusiastic  ;  I  was  inexperienced  ;  I  was  "  artistic  "  ;  I 
was  a  jumper-at-conclusions. 

When  he  finished  and,  with  one  of  his  good-natured 
smiles,  turned  and  looked  at  me,  I  was  crumbling  bread 
very  rapidly,  rolling  the  bread  into  soiled  little  pills, 
putting  the  little  pills  all  in  a  row. 

Later  on  in  the  evening  Bishop  Welldon,  a  little  group 
of  jolly  people  and  I  myself  sat  and  smoked  and  drank 
very  inferior  coffee.  Dr  Walford  Davies  did  not  join  us. 
He  shot  little  pointed  darts  at  me  from  his  eyes,  but 
(as,  of  course,  you  must  have  anticipated)  when  he  and  I 
parted  he  was  most  studiously  polite. 

And,  on  my  way  to  my  tram,  I  hummed  Davies' 
Hame !  Hame !  Hame !  to  myself  and  pondered  over 
the  mystery  that  enables  a  man  to  write  such  a  wonderful, 
soul-searching  melody  and  yet  possess  an  intellect  of 
quality  only  .  .  .  well,  so-so. 

Here  a  little  child  I  stand, 
Heaving  up  my  either  hand.   .  . 

Do  you  know  Walford  Davies'  setting  of  that  Grace,  the 
setting  he  made  some  years  ago  for  one  of  the  daughters  of 
the  late  Canon  Gorton  ?  If  you  do,  if,  as  I  do,  you  adore 
its  Blake-like  simplicity,  its  Ariel  freshness,  you  will  not 
mind  his  hatred  of  Wagner.  Only,  it  is  rather  strange, 
don't  you  think,  that  we  outsiders  who  love  Wagner  (and 
I  believe,  don't  you,  that  all  intense  lovers  of  Wagner 
must  be  rather  outsiderish  ?)  should  be  able  to  love 
Walford  Davies  also,  though  he  (most  unhappy  !)  can't  or 
won't  love  us  ? 

But  it  is  being  borne  in  upon  me  that  for  the  last  five 
minutes  I  have  been  writing  like  the  adorable  Eve  in  The 
Taller.     Let  me,  for  her  sake,  begin  another  chapter. 


CHAPTER  III 
FRANK  HARRIS 

IT  must  have  been  five  or  six  years  ago  that  a  friend 
came  to  me  with  the  news  that  Frank  Harris  had 
expressed  a  desire  to  see  some  of  my  verse.  Pre- 
cisely what  my  friend  had  told  Harris  about  me,  I  do 
not  know  ;  something  very  exaggerated,  perhaps  ;  some- 
thing complimentary,  doubtless  ;  something  that  piqued 
Harris's  curiosity,  it  was  evident.  As  Harris  is  one  of  the 
few  modern  writers  for  whom  my  boyish  admiration  has 
survived  manhood,  I  felt  subtly  gratified  that  he  should 
take  even  a  fleeting  interest  in  me,  and  I  sat  down  at  once 
and  copied  out  various  poems  that  had  already  appeared 
in  The  Academy,  under  Lord  Alfred  Douglas's  editorship, 
and  in  The  English  Review  in  the  days  of  Ford  Madox 
Hueffer,  and,  more  recently,  when  edited  by  Austin 
Harrison.  With  my  verses  I  sent  a  letter,  hypocritically 
modest  as  regards  myself,  honestly  full  of  admiration  as 
regards  Harris.  He  replied  from  his  villa  in  Nice,  sending 
me  a  long  letter  in  which  he  did  me  the  honour  to  enter 
fully  into  the  supposed  merits  and  demerits  of  my  work. 
Of  one  poem  he  said  thaj;  it  was  not  sufficiently  sensual, 
and  I  have  never  been  able  quite  to  understand  what  he 
meant,  for  I  had,  with  some  particularity,  described  seven 
naked  ladies  swimming  in  a  pool,  and  I  had  felt  that  my 
verses  had  obviously  enough  expressed  my  feelings. 

The  correspondence  continued  until,  one  day,  Harris 
wrote  to  tell  me  he  was  returning  to  London  and  to  invite 
me  to  visit  him  there.  In  the  event,  however,  my  first 
meeting  with  Harris  was  in  Manchester,  whither  he  came 

32 


FRANK  HARRIS  33 

to  lecture  on  Shakespeare  to  the  local  dramatic  society. 
Jack  Kahane  (a  great  friend  of  mine)  and  I  met  him  at 
the  Midland  Hotel  upon  his  arrival,  and  from  the  very 
first  moment  he  intoxicated  me.  Whilst  he  changed 
from  his  travelling  clothes  to  evening  dress  he  talked 
and  ejaculated,  beseeching  us  to  remain  with  him  as 
he  had  had  "  a  rotten  journey  from  London  and  felt 
unutterably  bored."  I  remember  very  little  of  what  he 
said  except  that,  with  some  venom,  he  called  Browning 
'  a  not  unprosperous  gentleman."  He  refused  to  eat  or 
drink  before  his  lecture  and,  presently,  we  went  down  to 
the  large  room  in  the  hotel  where  he  was  to  speak. 

We  found  there  a  mixed  assembly.  Everybody  in 
Manchester,  it  should  be  explained,  writes  plays ;  at 
least,  I  never  yet  met  a  man  in  that  delectable  city  who 
does  not.  Moreover,  they  "  study  "  them.  They  weigh 
and  compare  the  merits  of  Stanley  Houghton  and  Ibsen, 
Harold  Brighouse  and  Strindberg,  Allan  Monkhouse  and 
Bjornson,  Arnold  Bennett  and  Hauptmann,  Laurence 
Housman  and  Brieux,  and  so  forth.  They  search  for 
"  inner  meanings  "  ;  the  more  earnest  of  them  hunt  for 
"  messages  "  ;  the  more  delicate  seek  to  perceive  Fine 
Shades.  They  are  veritable  disciples  of  Miss  Horniman 
— priggishly  intellectual,  self-consciously  superior.  And, 
of  course,  the  rock  of  their  salvation  is  St  Bernard. 
Innocuous  people  enough,  but  impossible  to  live  in  the 
same  city  with. 

To  this  assembly  of  earnest,  pale  men  and  spectacled 
women  Harris  was  to  lecture,  and  I  looked  from  them  to 
Harris  and  from  Harris  to  them  with  joyful  expectations. 
From  the  very  first  sentence  he  was  fiery  and  provocative, 
throwing  out  daring  theories,  anathematising  all  forms  of 
respectability,  upholding  with  unparalleled  fierceness  a 
wonderful  ideal  of  chivalry  and  nobility  and  condemning, 
en  bloc,  the  whole  human  race,  and  particularly  that  portion 
of  it  seated  before  him.      Ladies  rustled  :    men  stirred 


34  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

uneasily.  Then,  having  delivered  himself  of  a  passage  of 
hot  eloquence,  he  paused.  A  clock  ticked.  He  looked 
defiantly  at  us  and  still  paused.  A  fat  lady  in  the  front 
row,  palpably  embarrassed  by  the  long  silence  and,  no 
doubt,  feeling  that  she  had  reached  one  of  the  most 
dramatic  moments  of  her  existence,  banged  her  plump 
hands  together  and  ejaculated  :  "  Bravo  !  "  A  few  other 
ladies  of  both  sexes  joined  her,  but  Harris  was  not  to  be 
placated.  Thrusting  out  his  chin,  he  began  again.  And 
this  time  he  attacked  the  Mancunian  literary  idol,  Pro- 
fessor C.  H.  Herford,  a  great  scholar,  but  a  more  than  suit- 
able object  for  Harris's  ridicule.  Herford  is  a  man  who 
has  not  lived  fully  :  a  semi-invalid,  asthmatic,  bloodless 
and  spectacled  ;  a  man  of  books  and  rather  dusty  books  ; 
in  effect,  a  professor.  He  had  recently  reviewed  Harris's 
book,  The  Man  Shakespeare,  in  The  Manchester  Guardian, 
and  had  called  it  "  a  disgrace  to  British  scholarship." 
Why  this  should  have  annoyed  the  author  I  cannot  tell, 
but  Harris  is  at  times  a  little  unreasonable.  Indeed, 
"  annoyance  "  but  feebly  describes  the  feeling  that  spent 
itself  in  scalding  invective  and  the  most  terrible  irony. 
Each  sentence  he  spoke  appeared  to  be  the  last  word  in 
bitterness ;  but  each  succeeding  sentence  leaped  above 
and  beyond  its  predecessor,  until  at  length  the  speaker  had 
lashed  himself  into  a  state  of  feeling  to  express  which 
words  were  useless.  He  stopped  magnificently,  and  this 
time  the  room  rang  with  applause.  It  is  probable  that 
not  half-a-dozen  people  present  believed  his  attack  on 
Professor  Herford  was  justified ;  indeed,  it  is  probable  that 
not  half-a-dozen  were  qualified  to  form  any  opinion  of 
value  on  the  matter.  Nevertheless,  they  applauded  him 
with  enthusiasm,  and  they  did  so  because  they  had  been 
deeply  stirred  by  eloquence  that  can  only  be  described  as 
superb  and  by  anger  that  was  lava  hot  in  its  sincerity. 
Briefly,  the  lecture  was  an  overwhelming  success. 
I  was  soon  to  discover  that  Harris,  like  all  the  men  of 


FRANK  HARRIS  35 

genius  I  have  met,  is  vain.  I  do  not  mean  that  he  over- 
rates his  gifts  :  he  does  not ;  nor  that  his  recognition  of 
his  own  genius  is  offensively  insistent :  such  is  very  far 
from  being  the  case.  I  mean  that  ,he  is  inordinately 
proud,  innocently  and  childlikely  proud,  of  things  that  arc 
not  of  the  least  consequence.  At  supper  in  the  French 
Restaurant  the  head  waiter  slipped  noiselessly  across  to 
the  table  at  which  Harris,  Kahane  and  I  were  sitting. 
(Harris  is  the  kind  of  man  who  acts  as  a  magnet  to  all 
head  waiters — a  high  tribute  to  his  dominating  person- 
ality.) When  our  orders  had  been  given  the  waiter, 
turning  to  go,  said  :  "  Very  good,  Mr  Harris."  On  the 
instant  Harris  looked  up.  "  So  you  know  me  ?  "  he 
asked.  '  Yes,  sir.  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  waiting 
on  you  in  Monte  Carlo  and,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  in 
New  York  as  well."  It  is  difficult  to  describe  the  naive 
pleasure  Harris  took  in  this  :  it  stamped  him  at  once  as  a 
man  of  the  world — he  who,  of  all  people,  required,  in  our 
opinion,  no  such  stamp. 

For  six  hours  we  talked — talked  long  after  every  other 
visitor  in  the  hotel  had  retired,  and  we  were  left  alone  in 
the  Octagon  Court  in  a  pool  of  dim  light.  Harris  is  the  only 
brilliant  talker  I  have  met  who  has  not  made  me  feel  an 
abject  idiot.  To  begin  with,  though  he  has  a  pronounced 
strain  of  violence,  almost  of  brutality,  in  his  nature,  he  is 
always  infinitely  courteous.  He  will  listen  to  your  (I 
mean  my)  feeble  contributions  to  a  discussion  with  interest 
which,  if  feigned,  is  so  admirably  feigned  that  you  are 
completely  deceived.  And  he  can  keep  this  sort  of  thing 
up  indefinitely.  Moreover,  though  his  mind  is  agile 
enough,  his  speech  is  rarely  quick  ;  it  is  slow  and  de- 
liberate, but  without  hesitation,  without  a  single  word 
of  tautology. 

I  cannot  hope,  after  so  long  a  lapse  of  time,  to  repro- 
duce, however  faintly,  the  true  quality  of  Harris's  con- 
versation,  but   I   remember   the   substance   of  it   most 


36  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

vividly.  In  his  lectin  e  earlier  in  the  evening  he  had 
mentioned  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  reference  to  our  Saviour 
had  been  so  original  in  its  implication,  yet  so  reverent  in 
its  manner,  that  I  felt  he  must  have  much  that  is  new  to 
pay  on  a  subject  that  has  aroused  more  discussion  than  any 
other  during  the  last  two  thousand  years.  So  I  broached 
it  tentatively.  He  was  aroused  immediately ,  and  skilfully 
drew  me  out  to  discover  if  I  had  anything  new  to  say.  I 
had  not.  I  merely  voiced  what  must  be  an  age-long 
regret,  that  only  one  side  of  Christ's  nature  has  been  pre- 
sented to  us  in  the  Gospels  ;  that  the  feasting,  joyous 
Christ  has  been  oniy  faintly  indicated  ;  and  that  His 
tolerance  towards  the  weaknesses  of  the  body's  passions 
had  always  been  shirked  by  those  of  the  priestly  craft.  I 
thought  it  possible  that  at  some  future  crisis  in  the  world's 
history  Christ  might  come  again  and,  on  His  second 
coming,  present  to  the  world  a  more  complete  embodi- 
ment of  all  the  potentialities  inherent  in  human  nature. 

With  much  of  this  Harris  agreed,  though  I  soon  per- 
ceived that  his  mind  had  for  long  been  intuitively  build- 
ing up,  and  giving  true  proportion  to,  those  elements  in 
Christ's  nature  that  are  only  hinted  at  in  the  Gospels. 
He  was  all  for  a  full-blooded,  passionate  Jesus,  for  a  Jesus 
who  had  tested  the  body's  powers,  for  a  Jesus  who  was 
crucified  by  passion  before  He  was  crucified  by  Pilate. 
In  a  word,  he  applied  to  Jesus  the  same  intuitive  method 
that  he  had  already  applied  to  Shakespeare.  The  danger 
of  this  method,  of  course,  is  that  one  is  tempted  (and  it  is 
almost  impossible  not  to  succumb  to  the  temptation)  to 
project  one's  own  personality  into  that  of  the  man  one  is 
studying. 

"  My  next  book  shall  be  about  Jesus  Christ,"  said 
Harris.  "  No  man  in  these  days  has  written  honestly 
about  Him." 

"  Shall  you  write  as  a  believer  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Most  assuredly,"  he  replied. 


FRANK  HARRIS  37 

Then  Harris  told  us  some  stories — stories  he  had 
written,  stories  he  had  yet  to  write.  I  remember  Austin 
Harrison  once  saying  to  me  :  "  Frank  Harris  is  the  most 
astounding  creature  !  He  will  tell  you  a  story  and  tell  it 
so  marvellously  that,  when  he  has  finished,  you  say  to 
yourself :  '  That  is  the  most  wonderful  thing  I  have  ever 
heard.'  And  you  say  to  him  :  '  Why,  in  God's  name, 
don't  you  write  that  ?  '  Well,  he  doe>  write  it,  and  when 
you  read  it  you  see  that,  after  all,  it  is  by  no  means  so 
wonderful  a  thing  as  you  had  thought  it."  But  this  is  only 
half  true.  The  story  that  is  told  ir>  a  very  different  thing 
from  the  story  that  is  written  :  so  different,  indeed,  that 
one  cannot  find  any  basis  for  comparison.  In  telling  a 
stoiy  Harris  is  elliptical ;  a  faint  gesture  serves  for  a 
sentence  ;  a  momentary  silence  is  an  innuendo  ;  a  lifting 
of  the  eyebiows,  a  look,  a  dropping  of  the  voice,  a  slowness 
in  his  speech — all  these  take  the  place  of  words.  He  is  an 
exquisite  actor  and  he  is  at  his  best  when  he  is  sinister  and 
menacing.  One  need  scarcely  say  that  the  effect  of  one 
of  Harris's  stories,  told  in  private,  with  only  one  or  two 
listeners,  is  extremely  powerful,  for  his  personality,  so 
quick  to  melt  and  suffuse  his  speech — colouring  it  and 
vitalising  it — is  strong  and  strange  and  full  of  tropical 
richness.  .  .  . 

But  the  actor's  gift  is  not  rare,  whereas  that  combina- 
tion of  talents  that  makes  a  great  short-story  writer  is  met 
with  only  once  or  twice  in  a  generation.  Harris's  claims 
to  greatness  in  this  direction  cannot  justly  be  denied, 
though  of  late  years  there  has  been  a  noticeable  tendency 
to  treat  his  work  as  though  it  were  not  of  first-rate  im- 
portance. His  choice  of  subject,  the  violence  of  his 
thought,  his  strict  honesty  of  mind,  his  open  contempt 
for  many  of  his  contemporaries — these  have  brought  him 
enemies  whose  only  method  of  retaliation  is  to  decry  work 
they  will  not  understand. 

But    Harris    could    not    be    happy   without    hostility. 


38  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

There  is  something  of  the  jaguar  in  his  nature  ;  he  must, 
for  his  soul's  peace,  have  his  teeth  in  the  flesh  of  an  enemy. 
And,  if  he  is  not  fighting  an  individual,  he  is  offending 
society  at  large.  Years  ago,  so  Harris  told  me,  when  he 
was  editing  The  Fortnightly  Review  with  such  distinction, 
he  printed  one  of  his  own  short  stories  in  that  magazine — 
a  story  that,  for  one  reason  01  another,  gave  great  offence 
to  a  large  section  of  readers.  Within  twenty-four  hours 
he  had  a  hornet's  nest  about  his  ears,  and  the  directors 
of  the  firm,  Messrs  Chapman  &  Hall,  who  published  the 
Fortnightly,  met  in  solemn  conclave  to  discuss  what  should 
be  done  with  so  injudicious  and  reckless  an  editor.  Needless 
to  say,  Harris  stood  by  his  guns,  and  one  can  imagine 
the  splendidly  arrogant  way  in  which  he  would  uphold  his 
right  to  insert  anything  he  chose  in  a  magazine  edited  by 
himself.  But  discussion  made  matters  only  more  critical, 
and  Harris  told  me  he  would  have  been  compelled  to 
hand  in  his  resignation  if  an  unforeseen  event  had  not 
occurred.  Thnt  event  was  the  entrance  of  George  Mere- 
dith, who,  at  that  time,  was  a  reader  for  Messrs  Chapman 
&  Hall.  As  soon  as  his  eyes  lit  on  Harris  he  held  out  his 
hand,  and  walked  quickly  up  to  him,  saying  :  '  My  warm- 
est congratulations  !  Your  story  in  the  new  number  is 
quite  the  finest  thing  you  have  done — an  honour  to  your- 
self and  the  Fortnightly  !  "  That  left  no  further  room 
for  discussion  and,  needless  to  say,  Harris  retained  his 
editorship  of  the  great  magazine. 

My  first  meeting  with  Harris  was  of  the  friendliest 
nature,  and  on  his  return  to  London  he  wrote  to  me 
thanking  me  for  something  I  had  written  about  him  in 
The  Manchester  Courier.  (I  noticed  with  amusement 
that  The  Manchester  Guardian,  unable,  no  doubt,  to  for- 
give Harris  for  attacking  Professor  Herfoid.  had  absolutely 
ignored  the  Shakespeare  lecture,  except  to  announce 
baldly  that  it  had  been  given.) 

Very  soon  after  this  meeting  in  Manchester  I  went  to 


FRANK  HARRIS  39 

live  in  London,  and  called  on  Harris  in  Chancery  Lane. 
He  was  running  a  curious  illustrated  weekly,  entitled 
Hearth  and  Home,  and  I  remember  sitting  in  a  little  back 
room  in  his  office  turning  over  the  fil  s  of  his  magazine 
and  wondering  what  on  earth  he  hoped  to  do  with  such  a 
production.  It  was  tame  ;  it  was  watery  ;  it  was  feeble. 
I  looked  at  him  quizzically. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  it  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Well,  don't  you  see  ?  .  .  ."  I  began  hesitatingly ; 
"  don't  you  sec  that  .  .  .  well,  now,  look  at  the  title  !  ' 

"  Title's  good  enough,  don't  you  think  ?  " 

"  Oh  yes,  good  enough  .  .  .  good  enough  for  Fleetway 
House.  Why  not  sell  it  to  Northcliffe  ?  But  you've  got 
no  Aunt  Maggie's  column,  and  no  Beauty  Hints,  and  no 
Cupid's  Corner  !     Oh,  Harris  !  " 

He  laughed,  and  invited  me  out  to  lunch. 

I  never  discovered  what  strange  circumstances  had  con- 
spired to  make  him  the  possessor  of  this  extraordinary 
production.  No  doubt  he  bought  it  for  nor  hing,  with  the 
intention  of  rapidly  improving  it  and  selling  it  for  some- 
thing substantial  later  on.  But  I  believe  it  died  soon 
after — perhaps  urged  on  to  its  grave  by  some  verses  of 
mine  which  were  printed  close  to  an  advertisement  of 
ladies' . 

On  our  way  out  of  the  office  we  were  joined  by  a  very 
beautiful  lady  who,  it  soon  transpired,  shared  my  admira- 
tion for  Harris's  genius.  We  jumped  on  to  a  bus  running 
at  full  speed  and  alighted,  a  couple  of  minutes  later,  at 
Simpson's. 

Harris  should  write  a  book  on  cookery.  Perhaps  he 
will.  Harris  should  run  a  hotel.  But  he  has  already  done 
so.  Harris  should  be  induced  to  print  all  the  indiscreet 
things  he  says  over  coffee  and  liqueurs.  .  .  . 

It  was  a  close  study  of  Simpson's  menu  that  started  the 
cookery  discussion.  The  Beautiful  Lady  and  I  were  told 
what  was  wrong  and  what  was  right  with  the  menu.     And 


40  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

then  there  began  a  discourse,  profound,  full  of  strange 
knowledge  and  recondite  wisdom,  a  discourse  that  Balzac 
should  have  heard,  that  the  de  Goncourts  would  have 
envied.  We  listened,  amazed.  And  a  waiter,  having 
rushed  to  our  table  in  the  stress  of  his  work,  stood 
anchored,  his  mouth  slightly  open,  his  whole  attention 
riveted  on  the  Master  from  whom  no  gastronomic  secrets 
were  hid.     Truly,  Harris  was  amazing  ! 

After  a  considerable  time  his  enthusiasm  evaporated 
and  we  began  to  eat.  And  then  ensued  a  long  talk,  full  of 
indiscretions,  of  most  enjoyable  malice.  Harris  told  us 
many  things  that,  perhaps,  it  would  have  been  wiser  if  he 
had  kept  to  himself.  But,  in  spite  of  his  venom,  his  real 
hatred  of  certain  individuals,  he  never  for  a  moment  per- 
mits himself  to  be  blinded  to  the  quality  of  a  man's  work. 

"  So-and-so  is  the  most  detestable  person,"  he  said, 
speaking  of  a  well-known  writer,  "  but  he  is  one  of  the  few 
real  poets  alive."  Again  :  "  X  is  the  most  generous- 
hearted  man  I  have  ever  met ;  it's  a  pity  he  can't  learn  to 
write." 

Mention  of  Richard  Middleton,  who  had  only  recently 
died  by  his  own  hand  in  Brussels,  troubled  him,  and  it  was 
clear  that  he  had  not  yet  recovered  from  the  shock  of  this 
tragedy. 

"  He  killed  himself  in  a  mood  of  sheer  disgust — disgust 
at  his  lack  of  success.  True,  he  was  still  young,  and  was 
becoming  more  widely  known  month  by  month  ;  also,  he 
had  many  friends.  Nevertheless,  life  did  not  give  him 
what  he  asked  and,  tired  of  asking,  he  ended  life.  I 
remember  him  coming  to  me  just  before  he  left  England. 
He  wanted  to  get  away.  Some  mood  of  loathing  had 
come  to  him  ;  he  was  fretful,  yet  determined.  I  offered 
him  my  villa  at  Nice  ;  it  was  empty,  the  caretaker  would 
attend  to  his  wants  and  he  would  have  ample  leisure  for 
his  work.  He  hesitated,  stayed  in  London  a  day  or  two 
longer  and  then  disappeared  to  Brussels.  ...  I  know  the 


FRANK  HARRIS  41 

poison  he  used,  and  a  score  of  times  I  have  gone  over  in  my 
mind  the  tortures  he  must  have  endured." 

Harris  paled  ;  his  face  twitched  and,  involuntarily,  as 
it  seemed,  his  shoulders  twisted  themselves.  Brooding, 
he  was  silent  for  a  few  minutes,  and  then,  collecting  him- 
self with  a  little  shudder,  began  to  speak  of  other  things. 

A  little  later  the  Beautiful  Lady  departed  and  we  were 
left  alone. 

"  And  now,"  said  Harris,  "  tell  me  about  yourself. 
What  are  you  doing  ?  Why  have  you  left  Manchester  ? — 
but  there  is  no  reason  to  ask  that.  Tell  me  this — are  you 
making  enough  money  for  yourself  ?  " 

"  Well,  I've  lived  in  London  just  one  week,"  said  I, 
"  and  my  tastes  are  rather  expensive.  Just  before  I  left 
Manchester  a  very  experienced  journalist  told  me  I  should 
be  making  a  thousand  pounds  a  year  at  the  end  of  eighteen 
months  ;  another,  equally  experienced,  declared  I  should 
never  make  more  than  six  pounds  a  week.  I  hope  the 
second  one  won't  prove  correct." 

He  mused  for  a  few  moments. 

"  You  ought  to  make  a  thousand  pounds  a  year  pretty 
easily,  I  should  think,"  he  said  at  length.  "  Whom  do 
you  know  ?  " 

I  knew  nobody,  and  said  so.  He  thereupon  took  a 
piece  of  paper  from  his  pocket  and  wrote  a  list  of  names  ; 
at  the  top  of  the  list  stood  J.  L.  Garvin  ;  at  the  bottom, 
Lord  Northcliffe. 

,  "  Northcliffe's  away,"  he  said,  "  buying  forests  in  New- 
foundland to  make  paper  with.  However,  he'll  be  back 
in  a  week  or  two,  and  in  the  meantime  I'll  write  you  a 
letter  to  give  to  him.  And  now  we'll  take  a  taxi  and  see 
people." 

Harris  gave  up  the  whole  of  that  day  to  me  and,  largely 
owing  to  him,  I  had  within  the  next  few  days  more  work 
offered  to  me  than  I  could  possibly  get  through.  From 
time  to  time,  months  later,  good  things  would  come  my 


42  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

way,  and  nearly  always  I  could  trace  them  to  something 
generous  and  fine  that  Harris  had  said  of  me. 

It  was  chiefly  because  he  was  so  generous  with  his  time 
that  I  so  rarely  called  upon  him.  Often  I  would  curb  a 
strong  desire  to  see  him,  feeling  that  however  embarrass- 
ing my  visit  might  be,  he  would,  out  of  a  quixotic  kind- 
ness, throw  up  his  work  and  come  with  me  to  talk.  For 
this  reason  I  had  not  seen  him  for  some  little  time,  when, 
one  morning,  I  received  a  letter  from  him  reproaching  me 
for  my  absence.  "  Why  have  you  hidden  yourself  for  so 
long  ?  "  he  asked.  "  I  go  to  the  Cafe  every  night ;  come, 
you  will  find  me  there." 

"  The  Cafe,"  of  course,  was  the  Cafe  Royal.  It  so 
chanced  that,  that  very  afternoon,  my  duties  took  me  to 
a  symphony  concert  in  the  Queen's  Hall ;  the  concert 
over,  I  found  myself  passing  the  Cafe  Royal  on  my  way 
from  the  Queen's  Hall  to  Piccadilly  Circus,  and  turned  in 
on  the  remote  chance  of  finding  Harris. 

At  the  end  of  the  passage,  near  the  windows  where 
French  papers  are  displayed,  I  found  a  crowd  of  a  dozen 
excited  men,  all  talking  and  gesticulating.  The  rest  of 
the  Cafe  was  empty,  as  one  would  expect  at  that  time  of 
the  day.  In  the  middle  of  the  small  crowd  was  Harris, 
who  caught  my  eye  almost  at  once.  He  came  to  me,  and 
I  saw  that  he  was  rather  agitated. 

"  Come  and  sit  over  here,  Cumberland,"  he  said. 
"I've  just  been  through  a  beastly  quarter  of  an  hour." 

It  appeared  that  a  well-known  and  very  distinguished 
litterateur  had  quarrelled  with  him  in  the  Cafe.  .  .  . 
Blows  had  been  exchanged.  .  .  . 

We  talked  of  money — an  ever-absorbing  topic  both  to 
Harris  and  to  me.  He  told  me  his  books  had  brought 
him  practically  nothing.  For  The  Bomb,  if  I  remember 
correctly,  he  received  fifty  pounds — certainly  not  more 
than  one  hundred  pounds. 

"  If  I  had  been  compelled  to  live  by  what  my  books 


FRANK  HARRIS  43 

have  brought  me,"  he  said,  "  I  should  have  starved.  Yet 
it  is  not  long  ago  that  Arnold  Bennett  assured  me  that  I 
should  be  able  to  earn  five  thousand  pounds  a  year  if 
I  gave  my  whole  time  to  fiction.  But  Bennett  is  wrong. 
My  books,  ever  since  Elder  Conklin  was  published,  have 
been  enthusiastically  praised,  but  they  have  not  had  large 
sales.  Most  authors  must  find  book- writing  the  most 
unremunerative  work  in  the  world.  I  put  an  enormous 
amount  of  labour  into  The  Bomb,  as  I  do  into  all  my 
books,  and  the  labour  was  not  made  any  the  less  from 
the  fact  that  much  of  the  earliest  part  of  the  book 
is  autobiographical.  In  my  young  manhood  I  worked 
as  a  labourer,  deep  under  water,  at  the  foundations  of 
Brooklyn  Bridge  ;  it  is  all  described  in  my  book." 

Though  I  went  to  the  Cafe  Royal  at  frequent  intervals 
after  that  I  very  rarely  saw  Harris  there.  He  had 
abandoned  Hearth  and  Home,  or  it  had  abandoned  him,  and 
he  was  now  throwing  away  his  brilliant  gifts  on  Modern 
Society.  I  was  elected  an  honorary  member  of  the 
Cabaret  Club,  run  by  Madame  Strindberg,  the  widow  of 
the  great  Swedish  writer,  and  I  used  to  look  in  there 
occasionally  in  the  early  hours  of  the  morning,  expecting 
to  run  across  Harris,  who,  I  heard,  also  visited  that  exotic, 
underground  and  rather  riotous  place.  But  I  never 
chanced  to  see  him,  and  two  or  three  months  must  have 
passed  without  my  hearing  of  him. 

In  March,  1914,  I  went  to  Athens  for  a  holiday.  Some- 
thing brave  and  wonderful  in  that  city,  some  ancient 
Bacchic  madness,  some  fierce  exaltation  of  soul  took  hold 
of  me,  and  I  remember  sitting  down  one  night,  after  a 
visit  to  fever- stricken  Eleusis,  to  write  to  Harris,  feeling 
the  necessity  of  expressing  myself  to  one  who  would  under- 
stand. The  reader  may  be  amused  that  I  should  think 
Harris  akin  to  ancient  Greece,  but  if  the  reader  is  amused 
he  does  not  know  Harris.  Only  A.  R.  Orage  is  more 
Greek  in  spirit  than  he  is.     In  reply  Harris  wrote  at  great 


44  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

length,  full  of  the  fervour  of  a  young  student.  He  told  me 
that  in  his  young  manhood  he  had  spent  a  year  of  study 
in  that  wonderful  city,  and  urged  me  to  visit  him  on  my 
return  to  England. 

But  I  was  destined  not  to  see  him  again.  Very  soon 
after  my  return  to  England  he  got  into  trouble  with  refer- 
ence to  something  libellous  that  he  had  published  in 
Modern  Society.  He  was  kept  in  prison,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  for  about  a  month.  I  sought  permission  to  visit 
him  there,  but  was  refused,  and  I  was  staying  in  Oxford 
when  he  was  released. 

Soon  after  the  war  broke  out  he  wrote  me  the  following 
letter  from  Paris  : — 

23,  Avenue  du  Bois  de  Boulogne,  Paris, 
29th  Aug.  '14. 

My  dear  Cumberland, — I'm  just  back  from  the 
frontier.  .  .  .  This  war  of  nations  is  going  to  test  every 
man  as  by  fire  before  it's  over.  It  will  be  long  in  spite  of 
Mr  Kipps  and  Bernard  Shaw.  The  Russian  masses  will 
hardly  come  decisively  into  action  (they  have  scarcely  any 
railways  and  no  good  roads)  till  next  May  or  June,  and 
long  before  then,  or  rather  in  a  couple  of  months  from  now, 
the  French  will  be  pressed  back  to  within  twenty  miles  of 
besieged  Paris,  when  I  hope  the  English  forces  on  the 
flank  will  stop  the  German  advance.  Then  will  begin  the 
slow  process  of  driving  the  Germans  home,  which  will  be 
quickened  by  the  Russian  weight  behind  Cossack  pricks. 
Fancy  one  man  having  the  power  to  set  400  millions  of 
men  fighting  for  their  lives.  And  then  they  talk  of  man 
as  a  rational  animal !  ! 

Don't  say  you  like  what  I  wrote  in  The  Daily  Sketch  ; 
all  my  best  things  were  carefully  cut  out  and  filled  up  with 
drivel,  till  my  cheeks  burned. 

Your  sketch  of  me  is  very  kindly  ;  the  fault  you  find  in 
me  is  not  a  fault.     Jesus,  Shakespeare,  Napoleon — all  the 


FRANK  HARRIS  45 

greatest  men  have  known  their  own  value  and  insisted  on 
it — perhaps  because  they  have  all  come  to  their  own  and 
their  own  received  them  not.  When  you  have  done  great 
work  you  feel  it  is  not  yours,  but  given  to  you  ;  you  are 
only  a  reed  shaken  in  the  wind  ;  you  can  judge  it  as  if  it 
had  nothing  to  do  with  you.  Moreover,  you  see  that  this 
failure  to  recognise  greatness  is  the  capital  sin  of  all  time, 
the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost  which  He  said  could  never 
be  forgiven.  Modesty  is  the  fig-leaf  of  mediocrity — don't 
let  us  talk  of  it.  Remember  how  Whistler  scourged  it.  I 
I'm  writing  now  on  Natural  Religion — my  best  thing 
yet :  I've  done  more  than  Nietzsche  :  don't  think  I'm 
bragging.  I  am  the  Reconciler  ;  though  my  cocked  nose 
and  keen  eyes  may  make  you  think  me  a  combatant. 
Twenty  years  hence,  Cumberland,  if  your  eyes  keep  their 
promise,  you'll  think  differently  of  me.  I  remember  as  a 
young  man  getting  Wagner  to  praise  himself  and  saying  to 
myself  that  no  man  was  ever  so  conceited  as  the  little 
hawk-faced  fellow  with  the  ploughshare  chin.  Did  he  not 
say  that  the  step  from  Bach  to  Beethoven  was  not  so 
great  as  that  from  Beethoven  to  Wagner  !  And  yet  for 
these  fifteen  years  past  I  have  agreed  with  him  and  find 
nothing  conceited  in  the  declaration.  Only  weak  men  are 
hurt  by  another  man's  conceit ;  are  we  not  gods  also  to  be 
spoken  of  with  reverence  ? 

To  see  the  world  in  a  grain  of  sand 

And  Heaven  in  a  wild  flower, 
To  hold  Infinity  in  your  hand 

And  Eternity  in  an  hour. 

The  question  for  you  is,  have  I  quickened  you  ?  En- 
couraged you  to  be  a  brave  soldier  in  the  Liberation 
War  of  Humanity  ?  Did  virtue  come  out  of  me  ?  or 
discouragement  ?  Now  at  nearly  sixty  I  am  about  to 
rebuild  my  life  :  my  own  people  have  stoned  and  im- 
prisoned and   exiled  me.     Well — the  world's  wide.      In 


46  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

October  I  shall  be  in  New  York,  ready  for  another  round 
with  Fate.  Meanwhile,  all  luck  to  you  and  all  good  will 
from  your  friend,  Frank  Harris. 

Remember  this  word  of  Joubert :  there  is  no  such 
sure  sign  of  mediocrity  as  constant  moderation  in  praise. 
Ha  !     Ha  !     Ha  !    Yours  ever,  F.  H. 

There  is  not  in  this  letter  a  single  word  to  indicate  that 
he  was  not,  heart  and  soul,  in  sympathy  with  the  Allied 
Cause.  Late  in  September,  1914,  I  was  myself  in  Paris, 
having  visited  Amiens  and  the  Marne.  I  took  the  earliest 
opportunity  of  calling  upon  Harris,  but  discovered  that 
he  had  left  his  rooms  a  few  days  earlier,  leaving  no  indica- 
tion of  his  next  resting-place.  On  calling  upon  the 
American  Consul  I  discovered  that  my  friend  had  already 
sailed  for  the  States. 

Subsequently  he  wrote  bitterly  about  England  in  an 
American  paper.  I  never  had  an  opportunity  of  reading 
his  articles,  but  I  read  various  extracts  from  them  in 
British  newspapers,  and  was  astounded  both  by  the  views 
they  contained  and  by  the  manner  in  which  those  views 
were  expressed. 

Years  ago  Ruskin  wrote  Rossetti  a  curious  letter  :  he 
said  he  could  regard  no  man  as  friend  who  did  not  value 
his  (Ruskin's)  gifts  as  highly  as  he  (Ruskin)  did.  Harris, 
no  doubt,  adopted  the  same  kind  of  attitude  towards 
England.  England  refused  to  accept  him  at  his  own 
estimate  and,  at  length,  in  fierce  disgust,  Harris  turned  his 
back  on  a  country  which  he  deemed  unworthy  of  him. 


CHAPTER  IV 
MISCELLANEOUS 

Madame  Yvette  Guilbert — Sir  Victor  Horsley — Mrs  Pankhurst — 
Jacob  Epstein — Madame  A'ino  Ackte 

YVETTE  GUILBERT  !  .  .  .  Yvette  Guilbert !  I 
suppose  that  only  a  writer  who  really  can  write 
can  say  anything  useful  or  dignified  about  this 
most  wonderful  woman.  .  .  .  And  yet  I  must  try.  Do 
you  remember  that  extraordinary  breath-catching  pass- 
age in  Villette  where  Charlotte  Bronte  describes  the  acting 
of  Vashti — Vashti  who  was  Rachel — Vashti  who  went 
to  London  when  Charlotte  loved  Heger  ?  .  .  .  That,  I 
always  think,  was  a  great  event.  Little  Currer  Bell,  with 
her  most  modest  mind  and  her  most  proud  heart,  sitting, 
so  breathlessly,  on  one  side  of  the  footlights,  and  Rachel 
walking  from  the  wings,  beyond  the  footlights,  and,  like 
an  empress,  speaking,  thinking  like  an  empress,  and,  like 
a  veritable  woman,  loving  and  hating.  .  .  .  Do  you  re- 
member that  passage  ?  If  you  do,  perhaps  you  will 
think,  as  I  do,  that,  after  all,  only  women  can  write  of 
women.  Did  not  Jane  Austen  create  Elizabeth  Bennet  ? 
And  who  was  it  who  wrote  the  Sonnets  from  the  Portu- 
guese ?  And  even,  after  all,  Aphra  Behn  .  .  .  well,  she 
knew  something  about  women,  didn't  she  ? 

So  that  I  feel  only  a  woman  can  write  at  all  convincingly 
of  Yvette  Guilbert.  I  must  just  gossip  and  prattle  a 
little  while. 

I  must  have  heard  Yvette  Guilbert  a  score  of  times. 
The  first  occasion  was  in  the  Midland  Hall,  Manchester, 
eight  or  ten  years  ago,  when  she  sang  to  an  audience  of 

47 


48  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

about  two  hundred  frigid  people  who,  apparently,  knew 
as  much  French  as  I  know  of  the  language  of  the  Serbs, 
and  as  much  about  Art  as  the  pencil  with  which  I  write 
knows  about  the  thoughts  it  records.  Ernest  Newman 
was  there  and,  that  night,  wrote  an  article  for  The  Man- 
chester Guardian  that  must  have  more  than  compensated 
Guilbert  for  the  smallness  of  the  audience.  For  she  loves 
praise,  even  the  praise  she  gives  herself,  as  the  following 
letter  addressed  to  myself  will  testify  : 

Je  recois  votre  aimable  lettre  et  votre  admirable 
article  !  !  Je  ne  peux  pas  vous  dire  toute  la  joie  que  je 
resseus  en  lisant  que  vous  comprenez  si  Men  mes  efforts  ! 
Je  n'ai  jamais  su  Stre  hypocrite  et  j'ai  toujours  manque  de 
diplomatic  dans  la  vie  a  cause  de  cela  ;  aussi,  je  n'hesite 
pas  a  vous  dire  que  je  crois  sincerement  meriter  vos  bonnes 
paroles  parce  que  je  passe  ma  vie  entiere  a  me  devouer  a 
mon  art  sans  jamais  de  vacances.  Mon  amour  pour  le 
travail  et  la  Beaute  et  tout  ce  qui  est  pure  en  art  est  tout 
le  "  mateur  "  de  mes  forces  intellectuelles.  Merci  d'avoir 
devine  ce  qui  le  public  ne  vois  pas  toujours.  Mes  mains 
dans  les  votres.  Yvette  Guilbert. 

Guilbert  has  no  singing  voice,  and  yet  she  sings.  Her 
singing  voice  is  small  .  .  .  ever  so  small.  Yet  clear,  dis- 
tinct, expressive  and,  in  the  lowest  register,  most  deep  and 
thrilling.  How  little  mere  "  voice  "  matters  !  Only  con- 
sider. Here,  on  one  hand,  we  have  Madame  Clara  Butt 
with,  I  suppose,  one  of  the  most  wonderful  organs  that 
this  world,  or  any  other  world,  has  ever  listened  to.  But 
would  you  walk  five  miles  to  hear  her  sing  ?  I  wouldn't. 
You,  I  hope  and  believe,  wouldn't  either.  Would  you 
walk  five  miles  to  hear  Blanche  Marchesi  sing— Blanche 
Marchesi,  whose  voice,  as  mere  voice,  is  like  a  hundred 
other  voices  ?  Of  course  you  would.  Voice  matters 
little.     It  is  the  temperament,  the  intellect,  behind  the 


MISCELLANEOUS  49 

voice  that  counts.  And  the  eternal  struggle  that  Yvette 
Guilbert  has  had  to  undergo  has  been  the  struggle  to  make 
her  comparatively  small  voice  express  the  wonderful 
things  of  her  imagination. 

A  gesture.  A  look.  An  inflection.  Two  paces  on  the 
platform.  A  little  cry  ...  a  little  cry  of  dismay.  A 
superb  and  beautiful  signal  that  tells  us  the  Mother  of  God 
is  big  with  a  Child.  A  tiny  silence.  A  moment  of  jaunti- 
ness.  Something  arch  and  irresistible.  Something  tragic 
that  makes  you  clench  your  fists.  .  .  . 

One  day  Yvette  Guilbert  wrote  to  ask  me  to  call  on  her. 
I  did  not  go.  One  feels  so  foolish  in  the  presence  of  genius. 
One's  vanity  is  hurt.     One  is  afraid  of  being  found  out. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  war  I  visited  Sir  Victor  Horsley 
several  times  at  his  home.  I  was  interested  in  shell 
shock,  in  the  influence  that  the  horror  of  war  has  on 
certain  types  of  human  nature,  and  he  was  good  enough 
to  supply  me  with  a  great  deal  of  information.  Quiet 
and  undemonstrative,  he  used  always  to  stand,  or  move 
slowly  up  and  down  the  room ;  in  the  long  talks  we  had 
together,  I  do  not  remember  his  sitting  down  once. 

I  don't  think  I  ever  met  a  man  more  careful  to  express 
his  exact  meaning  ;  he  appeared  to  have  a  horror  of 
exaggeration  and  he  qualified  nearly  every  statement  he 
made.  In  discussing  scientific  subjects  such  scrupulous 
carefulness  is,  of  course,  not  only  wise  but  necessary,  and 
when,  later  on,  I  wrote  a  newspaper  article  on  the  effect 
that  the  strain  and  horror  of  war  have  on  the  human 
brain,  Sir  Victor  showed  himself  very  anxious  that,  in 
quoting  his  views,  I  should  do  so  in  language  that  could 
not  possibly  be  interpreted  in  two  different  senses. 

He  told  me  what  my  own  experience  in  France  and 
Salonica  in  1915-1917  confirmed  later  on,  that  it  is  fre- 
quently the  neurotic,  the  artistic,  the  excitable  man  who 
most  quickly  adapts  himself  to,  and  is  least  disturbed  by, 

n 


50  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

the  incredible  cruelties  of  warfare,  whilst  the  phlegmatic 
type  of  man  is  more  liable  to  be  broken  by  those  cruelties. 
Sir  Victor  Horsley  suggested  that  this  was,  in  some 
measure,  due  to  the  fact  that  the  neurotic  man  has,  in 
imagination,  tasted  the  terror  of  war  before  he  has  actually 
experienced  it ;  that  he  has,  as  it  were,  prepared  his  mind 
for  the  shock  it  is  to  receive.  The  unimaginative  man 
cannot  do  this,  so  that  when  his  turn  comes  to  go  to  the 
trenches  and  witness  stark  horrors,  his  nervous  system 
reacts  most  violently. 

Sir  Victor  spoke  a  good  deal  to  me  about  the  evil 
influence  of  drink,  and  continually  regretted  that  rum  was 
served  out  to  our  soldiers.  On  this  subject,  of  course, 
though  I  disagreed  with  him  profoundly,  I  did  not  attempt 
to  argue,  though  I  pointed  out  that  Napoleon  had  won 
many  of  his  campaigns  by  almost  drugging  his  men  with 
spirits.  To  this  he  made  no  reply,  though  he  shook  his 
head  gravely  and  seemed  to  ponder  a  little. 

My  last  interview  with  him  was  in  his  long,  bare  dining- 
room,  where,  as  we  stood  before  the  fire,  he  described  to 
me  in  a  low,  serious  voice  two  or  three  war  cases  of  mental 
trouble  (functional,  of  course,  not  organic),  and  I  could 
see  that  the  war  was,  so  to  speak,  closing  in  around  him  and 
enveloping  him  with  its  violent  appeals,  its  tragic  interests. 

•  •*••*•  • 

Mrs  Pankhurst  I  met  only  once,  but  the  impression  she 
has  left  on  my  mind  is  that  of  a  most  vivid  personality.  I 
saw  her  in  many  ridiculous  situations  that  would  have 
made  almost  any  other  person  look  positively  foolish  ; 
but  Mrs  Pankhurst's  sense  of  personal  dignity  is  so  strong, 
her  personality  is  so  imperious,  and,  above  all,  she 
possesses  so  much  humour  and  good  sense,  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  imagine  any  situation,  however  grotesque, 
that  would  render  her  ridiculous. 

My  interview  with  her  was  at  the  close  of  a  day  during 
which  she  had  worked  incessantly.     She  was  tired,  and 


MISCELLANEOUS  51 

her  face  was  lined  and  rather  dim.  An  hour  earlier  I  had 
seen  her  in  Oxford  Street,  Manchester,  seated  in  an  open, 
horseless  carriage,  a  dozen  enthusiastic  girls  pulling  at  the 
shafts,  a  few  ribald  boys  following  and  shouting  small 
obscenities.  I  admired  the  perfect  way  she  carried  off 
the  trying  situation.  She  sat  perfectly  calmly,  as  though 
nothing  in  the  least  unusual  were  happening,  as  though, 
indeed,  it  were  her  daily  custom,  and  the  daily  custom  of 
all  women,  to  be  dragged  through  the  public  streets  by  a 
band  of  young  ladies. 

We  sat  under  a  lamp  at  a  large  table.  The  things  we 
discussed  are  now  of  no  consequence,  for  the  need  for  their 
discussion  no  longer  exists.  I  can  only  give  my  impression 
of  her. 

She  struck  me  as  being  unutterably  weary,  weary 
bodily  and  perhaps  mentally.  Her  personality  suggested 
a  body  and  a  spirit  being  driven  by  an  implacable  will,  a 
will  that  had  no  mercy  for  herself  or  for  others,  a  will  that 
no  power  could  break.  I  could  not  help  wondering,  as  I 
looked  at  her,  whether  she  had  not  her  moments  of  doubt, 
of  self-distrust.  She  must  have  had,  for  all  men  and 
women  have.  But  those  moments  would  be  few  and 
short.  Though  she  spoke  to  me  very  quietly,  without  a 
gesture,  with  one  rather  tightly  clenched  hand  on  the 
table,  I  felt  the  sheer  power  of  her,  the  power  that  a 
quenchless  spirit  always  gives  to  its  owner. 

Fanatic  ?  Well,  yes,  if  to  be  indifferent  to  the  opinion 
of  other  people  and  to  be  absolutely  sure  of  yourself  is  to 
be  fanatical.  Certainly,  she  was  strange  and  grim  and 
relentless.  And  yet  one  could  not  doubt  her  tenderness, 
her  deep  sympathy,  her  devotion  to  humanity.  Yes,  a 
strange  woman,  but  perhaps  not  so  very  strange.  The 
qualities  I  saw  in  her  are  common  qualities  ;  the  differ- 
ence between  her  and  others  was  simply  that  she  possessed 
those  qualities  in  an  unusual  degree. 


52  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

Jacob  Epstein,  after  flouting  the  artistic  conventions 
for  at  least  ten  years,  is  being  taken  to  the  heart  of  the 
public.  The  impossible  is  happening,  and  it  is  happening 
because  of  the  war.  The  war  has  forced  reality  upon  us  ; 
it  has  made  us  love  beauty  rather  than  prettiness,  truth 
rather  than  make-believe,  the  soul  of  things  rather  than 
their  appearances. 

Epstein,  I  think,  could  never  be  said  to  be  in  revolt 
against  any  of  the  artistic  tendencies  of  the  time.  He 
simply  did  not  follow  those  tendencies  or  permit  them  to 
influence  him.  But  three  or  four  years  ago,  when  I  first 
met  him,  he  had  the  appearance,  the  manner,  and  even  the 
thoughts  of  one  who  is  in  revolt. 

I  remember  discussing  with  him  some  very  curious  and, 
indeed,  rather  alarming  designs  of  his  which  were  being 
exhibited  at  a  little  gallery  whose  name  I  have  forgotten. 
The  designs  were  openly  and  widely  described  as  "  in- 
decent "  ;  to  me  they  were  not  indecent :  they  were  merely 
meaningless.     I  could  see  no  idea  behind  them. 

"  They  are  not  designs,"  said  Epstein,  a  little  petulantly, 
I  thought. 

"  Then  what  are  they  ?  "  I  asked.  "  What  do  you  call 
them  ?  " 

"  I  am  not  aware  that  I  call  them  anything." 

"  But  what  do  they  mean  ?  " 

He  smiled  curiously  and  (we  were  sitting  in  the  Cafe 
Royal)  lit  a  cigarette. 

"  Ah  !  That  is  for  you  to  find  out.  Surely  you  don't 
expect  an  artist  to  explain  himself  ?  " 

Of  course  he  was  perfectly  right,  and  I  was  more 
than  foolish  to  ask  him  these  questions.  But  I  flogged 
at  it. 

"  Now,  your  busts  !  Especially  that  wonderful  head 
of  Augustus  John's  son  ! — beautiful,  marvellous  !  But 
those  extraordinary  red  drawings." 

"  I   cannot   explain   them,"    said   he,    "  but   I   would 


MISCELLANEOUS  53 

certainly  like  you  to  understand  them,  for  it  seems  to  me 
that  you  are  not  unintelligent." 

He  gave  me  a  quick,  sly  look,  and  we  began  to  talk  of 
John.  I  am  afraid  that  Epstein  must  have  qualified  his 
opinion  of  my  intelligence,  for  he  asserted,  in  contradiction 
to  what  I  was  saying,  that  John  was  on  the  wrong  tack, 
and  we  failed  to  come  to  any  agreement  about  this  most 
wonderful  of  living  painters. 

Like  most  artists,  Epstein  is  pronouncedly  inarticulate. 
He  is,  I  suppose,  as  much  a  mystery  to  himself  as  he  is  to 
others.  But  his  work  is,  of  course,  a  hundred  times  more 
interesting  than  himself. 

I  used  to  see  him  often,  but  we  rarely  did  more  than 
acknowledge  each  other's  existence,  and  when  I  saw  him 
the  other  week  in  khaki,  sitting  in  the  Cafe  Royal,  it  was 
clear  to  me  that,  though  he  said  he  remembered  me,  he 
had  only  a  vague  recollection  of  my  personality  and  had 
completely  forgotten  my  name. 

•  ••••••• 

I  have  often  thought  it  strange  that  while  singers  like 
Madame  Patti  and  Madame  Tetrazzini  should  conquer  the 
world — and  by  the  world  I  mean  every  section  of  the 
musical  public,  vulgar  and  fastidious  alike — another  and, 
to  my  mind,  a  very  much  finer  artiste,  Madame  Ackte, 
should  be  regarded  with  delight  only  by  those  whose 
musical  experience  is  wide  and  whose  minds  have  been 
tutored  by  comprehensive  study.  Personality,  after  all, 
is  almost  everything  in  Art,  and  Madame  Ackte  has 
a  personality  that  dwarfs  into  insignificance  nearly  all 
singers  who  are  her  equal  in  technical  attainments  and  in 
musical  subtlety. 

Her  great  part  is  Salome,  in  Richard  Strauss's  opera  of 
that  name.  With  the  wonderful  intuition  of  a  healthy, 
robust  mind  she  has  divined  all  the  perverted  wicked- 
ness of  that  most  tortured  woman.  Her  acting  is  among 
the  finest  things  of  our  day. 


54  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

No  one  could  guess,  in  talking  to  this  quiet,  almost 
demure  woman,  that  she  has  in  her  such  fires  of  passion, 
such  powers  of  portraying  devastating  wickedness.  She 
has  charm,  graciousnness,  simplicity.  Like  Yvette  Guil- 
bert,  she  has  worked  hard  almost  every  day  of  her  life. 
Her  talk  is  all  of  music  and  acting.  She  seems  most  un- 
modern.  Her  ingenuous  love  of  praise  is  delightful,  and 
if  you  notice  the  little  subtleties  in  her  singing  and  acting 
that  most  people  do  not  notice,  she  is  your  friend  for  ever. 


CHAPTER  V 

STANLEY  HOUGHTON  AND  HAROLD 
BRIGHOUSE 

BUT  perhaps  you  have  forgotten  who  Stanley 
Houghton  was  ?  Well,  not  so  long  before  the 
Great  War  he  was  famous,  both  in  England  and 
America,  as  the  author  of  Hindle  Wakes,  he  was  universally 
alluded  to  as  a  charming  personality,  and  he  promised 
to  become  one  of  the  most  prosperous  playwrights  in 
England.  Then,  while  still  young  and  not  yet  accustomed 
to  his  fame,  he  died  in  Italy.  Thereupon  some  thousand 
newspaper-writers  recorded  his  death  and  wrote  about 
him  some  of  the  most  lamentable  nonsense  it  has  ever  been 
my  misfortune  to  read. 

Let  me  tell  you  all  about  it. 

I  was  introduced  to  Stanley  Houghton  in  Manchester 
by  Jack  Kahane — the  latter  a  most  brilliant  and  engaging 
personality  who  knew  everybody  :  or,  rather,  everybody 
knew  him. 

"  This,"  said  Kahane,  indicating  Houghton,  "  is  one  of 
Miss  Horniman's  pets.  She  is  doing  a  play  of  his  this 
week  at  the  Gaiety.  Now,  let  me  see,  Stanley,  what  is 
the  name  of  your  little  play  ?  " 

Houghton  laughed  deprecatingly. 

"  Oh,  I  saw  it  last  night,"  said  I,  "  and  jolly  good  it 
was.  But  I've  seen  another  play  of  yours  besides  The 
Younger  Generation  ;  it  was  founded  on  a  story  by  Guy 
de  Maupassant.     That,  also,  was  tremendously  amusing." 

He  frowned,  and  I  understood  from  the  way  that  he 

55 


56  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

looked  over  my  head  that  I  had  displeased  him.  For  a 
moment  he  was  silent,  then  : 

"  I've  just  been  reading  some  of  your  verses  in  The 
English  Review"  said  he  ;    "  quite  nice,  quite  nice." 

So  then  I  examined  him  closely  and  saw  a  tall,  fair 
youth,  with  plenty  of  straw-coloured  hair,  a  prominent, 
rather  crooked  nose,  and  a  manner  of  painful  self- 
consciousness.  I  believe  that,  from  that  moment,  we 
distrusted  each  other  most  heartily.  We  parted  a  few 
minutes  later  and  I  think  Houghton  must  have  shared 
my  suspicion  and  regret  that  we  should  often  have  to 
meet  after  that  date.  Kahane  was  and  is  (though  he 
has  been  in  France  these  three  years  and  I  in  Macedonia) 
my  most  intimate  friend,  and  had  lately  "  taken  up  " 
Houghton,  and  whenever  Kahane  did  a  thing  he  did  it 
pretty  thoroughly.  And  friends  of  a  friend  are  bound  to 
tumble  across  each  other  continually. 

Later  in  the  day  I  protested  to  Kahane. 

"  What  on  earth  has  induced  you  to  take  up  this  man 
Houghton  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  He  amuses  me,"  said  Jack.  "  And,  really,  you 
know,  one  or  two  of  his  little  things  are  quite  promising. 
When  he  bores  me  I  rag  him.  And  then  he  loses 
his  temper.  II  m 'amuse,  and  that's  all  I  require  from 
him." 

Shortly  after  I  was  elected  a  member  of  a  funny  little 
coterie  in  Manchester,  called  the  Swan  Club.  Kahane 
had  founded  it.  There  were  twelve  of  us  altogether  : 
Kahane  ;  Stanley  Houghton ;  Harold  Brighouse  (whose 
play,  Hobsorfs  Choice,  is  making  "  big  money  "  in  London 
at  the  moment  of  writing) ;  Charles  Abercrombie  (now  a 
Lt.-Colonel  and  a  C.B.) ;  Walter  Mudie,  the  best  of  good 
fellows ;  Ernest  Marriott,  artist ;  W.  Price-Heywood, 
accountant  and  leader-writer ;  myself  and  a  few  hangers- 
on  of  the  Arts.  We  used  to  meet  for  lunch  at  a  shabby 
little  restaurant  in  Peter  Street,  Manchester,  opposite  the 


HOUGHTON  AND  BRIGHOUSE  57 

Theatre  Royal,  and  we  did  our  utmost  to  induce  each 
other  to  talk  about  ourselves. 

In  this  little  coterie  Houghton  was  a  veritable  whale 
among  the  minnows.  He  was  also  a  fish  out  of  water. 
From  the  very  first  his  success  spoiled  him.  He  would 
take  himself  ponderously.  Brighouse  worshipped  success, 
so  he  worshipped  Houghton.  The  rest  of  us,  if  we  wor- 
shipped anything  at  all,  worshipped  genius,  and  as  Kahane 
was  the  only  one  among  us  who  had  a  touch  of  that  divine 
quality,  we  rather  tended  to  worship  him.  But  Kahane 
frittered  away  his  gifts  ;  he  made  a  lot  of  money  by  dint 
of  working  about  an  hour  a  day  and  by  the  sheer  force  of 
his  personality.  For  the  rest  he  played  and  played  hard. 
He  talked  ;  he  ragged  ;  he  listened  to  music  and  saw 
plays  ;  he  fell  in  love  ;  he  indulged  harmless  vices  ;  and 
he  wrote  two  wonderful  plays,  full  of  faults,  but  streaked 
with  originality,  with  fire  and  with  colour.  In  effect,  he 
could  beat  both  Houghton  and  Brighouse  at  their  own 
game,  and  they  knew  it.  But,  at  that  time,  playwriting 
with  Kahane  was  only  a  game  ;  with  the  other  two  it  was 
deadly  earnest. 

Houghton  and  Brighouse  were  something  (and,  I 
gathered,  something  not  very  brilliant)  in  the  city. 
Quite  what  that  something  was  I  do  not  know,  though  I 
remember  seeking  out  Brighouse  once  in  a  dark  warehouse 
smelling  of  damp  cloth.  Every  afternoon  Houghton  and 
Brighouse  would  close  their  ledgers,  or  petty-cash  books, 
or  whatever  it  was  they  did  close,  and  rush  off  home — 
Brighouse  to  catch,  perhaps,  his  six-five  p.m.  train  to  Eccles, 
and  Houghton  to  jump  gymnastically  (he  played  hockey, 
I  believe)  on  to  a  passing  tram  bound  for  Alexandra  Park. 
After  a  hurried  meal,  out  with  the  MSS.,  the  notebooks, 
the  typescript  and  to  work  !  And  how  hard  they  did 
work  ! 

I  remember  Brighouse  telling  me  some  years  ago  that 
he  had  written  more  than  thirty  plays,   but  I  cannot 


58  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

conceive  that  anybody  but  himself  has  read  them  all. 
Brighouse  slogged,  and  he  beat  so  long  at  the  door  of 
success  that  at  last  it  opened  to  him.  Houghton  also 
slogged,  but  in  a  dandified  way.  He  was  clever,  he  was 
cute,  and  he  played  his  cards  well. 

•  *•••••• 

Houghton  was,  not  without  full  justice,  called  the  leader 
of  the  Manchester  School  of  dramatists.  He  was  hard ; 
he  was  unimaginative  ;  he  was  unromantic.  But  he  was 
extraordinarily  apt,  and  he  had  a  neat  and  tidy  brain. 
Close  must  have  been  that  union  of  souls  that  bound  his 
soul  to  the  soul  of  Miss  Horniman.  Miss  Horniman  never 
(well,  hardly  ever)  produced  a  romantic  play,  and  Stanley 
Houghton  never  wrote  one.  He  was  out  to  "  make 
good,"  and  Miss  Horniman  helped  him  to  go  one 
better. 

I  need  scarcely  say  that  Houghton  was,  so  far  as  his 
plays  were  concerned,  an  industrious  man  of  business. 
When  the  real  artist  has  finished  a  work,  he  ceases  to 
take  interest  in  it ;  but,  with  Houghton,  when  a  play  was 
completed  his  interest  in  it  immediately  intensified.  He 
sent  his  plays  everywhere :  to  the  provinces,  to  London, 
to  America,  to  agents.  As  soon  as  a  play  came  back, 
"  returned  with  thanks,"  out  it  went  again  by  the  next 
post.  And  he  pulled  strings — oh  !  ever  so  gently,  but  he 
pulled  them. 

Though  quite  a  few  of  his  plays  had  been  produced 
in  the  north,  and  though  he  had  written  some  clever 
dramatic  criticism  for  The  Manchester  Guardian,  he  was 
unknown  in  London  till  the  Stage  Society  produced  Hindle 
Wakes.  Then  Fame  came  to  him  and  knocked  him  off  his 
feet.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine  a  man  more  conscious  of 
his  success.  His  consciousness  of  it  made  him,  on  occa- 
sion, tongue-tied.  In  conversation  he  could  be  ready, 
and  his  repartee  was  frequently  brilliant,  but  during  the 
years  I  knew  him  his  attitude  always  suggested  that  he 


HOUGHTON  AND  BRIGHOUSE  59 

anticipated  and  feared  attack.  I  saw  him  once  at  the  bar 
of  the  Gaiety  Theatre,  Manchester,  in  the  midst  of  a  group 
of  friends.  I  was  not  of  their  company,  but  I  noticed  that 
he  stood  silent,  erect  and  strained,  his  head  a  little  thrown 
back,  his  face  set.  Then,  and  on  many  other  occasions, 
it  seemed  to  me  that  he  longed  to  break  down  the  feeling 
of  awkwardness — to  throw  off  the  obsession  of  self- 
consciousness — that  overcame  him. 

But  I  must  confess  that  I  rarely  saw  him  in  company 
in  which  there  were  not  two  or  three  who  were  hostile  to 
him  ;  therefore  I  saw  him  but  seldom  at  his  best.  Not 
infrequently,  there  was  a  "  dead  set  "  against  him,  and  if 
the  banter  were  edged  with  malice  (as  it  not  infrequently 
was)  he  withered  like  a  lily  under  the  grip  of  a  frost.  The 
truth  is,  he  was  not  modest  and  he  could  not  feign 
modesty.  His  vanity  was  neither  charming  nor  aggres- 
sive ;  it  was  cold  and  distant,  without  geniality,  without 
humour.  Genius  is  one  of  the  wombs  of  vanity,  but 
Houghton  had  no  genius  ;  there  was  not  a  trace  of  magic 
in  him  ;  he  was  merely  extraordinarily  clever,  closely 
observant  and  possessed  of  an  instinctive  sense  of  form 
and  of  literary  values. 

•  ••••••  • 

There  came  a  day  when  it  entered  my  head  to  interview 
him  for  The  Manchester  Courier,  a  paper  for  which  I  wrote 
musical  criticism.  He  accepted  my  proposal  with  alacrity, 
invited  me  to  the  Winter  Garden  of  the  Midland  Hotel, 
and  provided  me  with  coffee,  liqueurs  and  cigars. 

He  began  by  telling  me  that  this  was  the  first  time  he 
had  been  interviewed  for  the  Press. 

"  An  uncomfortable  half- hour  awaits  you,  then,"  said 
I,  and,  on  the  instant,  he  began  to  fidget. 

I  noticed  that  he  was  dressed  for  the  occasion  ;  he 
looked  prosperous  and  literary  and  there  hung  about  him 
just  a  suspicion  of  cosmopolitanism.  Not  only  sartorially 
was  he  prepared  ;    his  mind  was  in  tune  to  the  occasion 


60  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

and  the  right  pose  was  donned.  That  is  to  say,'he  was 
determined  not  to  appear  conceited  or  self-satisfied  ;  but 
he  did  not  succeed.  He  made  light  of  his  success  in  a 
heavy,  emphatic  way.  He  praised  Hindle  Wakes  with 
faint  damns,  and  suggested  that  this  play  would  soon 
cease  its  successful  run  in  London.  He  was  careful  not 
to  evince  any  pleasure  in  his  success,  any  natural  buoyancy 
of  spirit,  any  momentary  delight.  In  a  word,  he  was  dull, 
tactless  and  insincere.  There  was  nothing  boyish  or 
charming  or  graceful  in  his  words ;  he  had  on  all 
his  heavy  armour  and  it  banged  and  clanged  as  he 
moved. 

When  the  interview  was  over  he  invited  me  to  his 
father's  house  for  the  evening  meal.  I  went.  I  went  out 
of  curiosity.  He  did  not  amuse  me,  but  most  certainly 
he  did  interest  me. 

When  we  had  finished  our  meal  he  took  me  to  his  study. 
Near  the  window  was  a  typewriter ;  in  the  typewriter 
was  a  sheet  of  paper  half  covered  with  script.  There 
were  very  few  erasures. 

"  I  always  compose  straight  on  to  the  machine,"  said 
Houghton. 

"  Ah  yes,"  said  I,  "  and  so  did  J.  M.  Synge.  It  has 
always  seemed  to  me  remarkable  that  Synge  should  do 
that ;  in  your  own  case,  of  course,  it  is  not  quite  so 
remarkable." 

"It  is  a  comedy  for  Cyril  Maude  "  (I  think  he  said 
Cyril  Maude).  "  He  wired  to  me  the  other  day  to  go  up 
to  London  to  see  him.  Yes  ;  he  wanted  a  comedy,  and  he 
wanted  me  to  write  it.  That  was  about  a  fortnight  ago. 
Well,  the  thing's  nearly  finished  ;  in  another  week  it  will 
be  on  its  way  to  London.  Rather  quick  work,  don't  you 
think  ?  " 

"  Quite.  But  all  that  you  have  told  me  I  know  already, 
and,  really,  you  must  know  that  I  know.  You  see,  Brig- 
house  comes  to  the  Swan  Club  day  by  day,  drinks  his  beer 


HOUGHTON  AND  BRIGHOUSE  61 

— you  know,  the  conventionally  British  pint  he  will  have 
in  a  pewter  mug " 

'  Yes  ;  Harold  is  very  British,"  interrupted  Houghton. 

'  Isn't  he  ?  Well,  as  I  was  saying,  Brighouse  drinks 
his  beer,  fixes  his  eyes  on  his  plate,  and  then  spasmodically 
tells  us  all  the  news  about  you.  He  told  us,  for  example, 
about  Cyril  Maude  giving  you  a  hundred  (or  was  it  a 
thousand  ?)  guineas  for  the  sight  of  a  new  comedy  ;  he 
told  us  about  The  Daily  Mail  wanting  articles  from  you  at 
some  colossal  figure  ;  he  told  us  about  the  host  of  people 
who  send  you  wires  every  day  ;   he  told  us  about '" 

Houghton  stirred  uneasily,  but  he  looked  intensely 
gratified. 

''  He  told  us  about  everything,"  I  added,  after  a  slight 
pause.  "  What  you  tell  him  he  tells  us.  But  why  don't 
you  come  and  tell  us  yourself,  Houghton  ?  We  never  see 
you  at  the  Swan  Club  nowadays.  It  must  not  be  said  of 
you  that  you  desert  old  friends,  that  success  has  made  you 
careless  of  those  you  once  liked." 

He  darted  a  glance  at  me  and  decided,  as  was  indeed 
the  case,  that  I  was  attempting  to  be  ironical. 

'  The  truth  is,"  said  he,  "  that  the  company  I  find  at 
the  Swan  Club  is  not  always  very  congenial.  One  or  two 
new  men  have  been  lately  introduced " 

He  looked  away  from  me  meaningly. 

"  Quite,"  said  I,  unperturbed  ;    "  oh,  quite." 

"  And,"  he  continued,  "  I  am  kept  very  busy  with  one 
thing  and  another.  It  is  true  that  I  have  given  up  my 
business  and  now  intend  devoting  all  my  energy  to  literary 
work,  but  just  at  the  present  moment  I  am  kept  at  it 
from  dawn  to  dusk." 

Silence  fell  upon  us,  a  rather  oppressive  silence,  I  think, 
for  I  remember  hunting  about  in  my  mind  for  something 
to  say.  I  noticed  a  copy  of  The  Playboy  of  the  Western 
World  on  the  little  table  before  us. 

"  Still  reading  Synge  ?  "  I  asked. 


62  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

"Yes  ;  still  reading  Synge,"  he  replied.  Then,  after  a 
pause  :    "  A  great  man,  Synge." 

"  An  interesting  man,  a  curious  man,"  said  I,  "  but 
great  ?  Only  G.  H.  Mair,  Willie  Yeats  and  high  school 
girls  think  Synge  great,  Houghton." 

"  Is  that  so  ?  "  asked  he  languidly. 

I  invited  him  to  have  a  cigarette,  but  he  refused.  In 
truth,  we  were  both  very  uncomfortable  and,  by  the 
subtle  understanding  and  inverted  sympathy  that  hearty 
dislike  engenders,  we  rose  simultaneously  to  our  feet, 
rather  hurriedly  left  the  room,  and  soon  found  ourselves 
in  the  hall  downstairs.  He  opened  the  front  door  and  we 
stood  for  a  moment,  looking  around  us. 

Next  day  my  interview  with  Houghton  appeared  in 
The  Manchester  Courier,  with  a  portrait  of  the  young 
dramatist.  I  do  not  remember  a  word  of  that  article, 
but  I  am  quite  sure  it  was  insincere,  without  distinction, 
and  full  of  inanities  ;  indeed,  I  would  bet  at  least  ten 
drachmae  that  there  occur  in  it  such  expressions  as 
''  inherent  modesty,"  "  charming  personality,"  ''  interest- 
ing outlook  on  life,"  and  so  on.  A  journalist  (must  I  say 
it  ?)  is  like  a  barrister  :  he  is  fee'd  to  say  what  is  required 
to  be  said.  At  all  events,  the  interview  pleased  Houghton, 
for  he  sent  me  a  copy  of  Ilindle  Wakes  with  a  jocular 
inscription  on  its  title-page. 

The  friendship  between  Brighouse  and  Houghton  in- 
creased in  intensity,  and  when  Arnold  Bennett  publicly 
referred  to  Brighouse  in  terms  of  no  small  admiration 
Houghton  decided  that  his  eager  disciple  could  be  re- 
ceived into  the  inner  sanctum  of  his  coldly  fraternal 
breast.  And  Brighouse,  grateful  to  Bennett,  loudly 
proclaimed  that  Milestones  was  "  the  greatest  play  since 
Congreve." 

'  But  why  Congreve,  Brighouse  ?  '  I  asked.  "  Surely 
you  mean  H.  J.  Byron  ?  " 


HOUGHTON  AND  BRIGHOUSE  63 

But  no  !     He  said  he  meant  Congreve. 

"  I  do  not,"  I  said,  considerably  perturbed,  "I  do  not 
like  to  think,  Brighouse,  that  you  have  stained  your 
virgin  mind  with  Congreve." 

"  I've  looked  at  him,"  said  he  icily.  "  He  wrote 
comedies.     Milestones  is  a  comedy." 

Now,  I  was  used  to  Brighouse  for,  from  the  age  of 
eleven  to  thirteen  I  had  been  at  the  same  school  with  him, 
and  I  remembered  how  enormously  sensitive  and  how  self- 
contained  and  how  stubborn  he  was.  I  also  remembered 
that  Rabelaisianism,  or  Congrevism,  or,  indeed,  any  ism 
that  denoted  the  real  philosophic  vulgarity  of  the  human 
mind,  or  any  jolly  indecent  wit,  was  repellent  to  him. 

"  There  are,  I  suppose,  expurgated  editions  of  Con- 
greve, Brighouse.  I  imagine  you  as  a  collector  of  ex- 
purgated editions." 

But  he  buried  his  nose  in  his  pint  of  beer  and  refused 
further  converse. 

Now,  such  are  the  influences  that  one  man  may  have 
upon  another,  it  came  about  that  the  more  successful 
Houghton  became,  the  harder  worked  Brighouse.  Said 
Brighouse  to  himself,  I  imagine  :  "If  Stanley  can  do  all 
this,  why  not  I  ?  "  So  he  worked  desperately,  sloggingly, 
overwhelmingly.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all  his  hard  work,  he 
kept  a  most  watchful  and  jealous  eye  on  his  contem- 
poraries, and  I  remember  meeting  him  at  one  of  Miss 
Horniman's  orgies  at  the  Gaiety  Theatre  when  a  new  play 
of  Galsworthy's  was  given.  It  was  a  beautiful  play 
(Galsworthy  has  not  written  many  beautiful  plays),  but  I 
regret  to  say  I  do  not  remember  its  name.  At  the  end 
of  the  first  act  Brighouse  was  disgustingly  "'  superior," 
and  at  the  end  of  the  second  he  was  contemptuous.  So 
I  sought  a  quarrel  with  him.  There  are,  I  think,  few 
emotions  so  devastating,  and  so  difficult  to  control,  as 
the  anger  that  surges  upon  one  when  one  hears  a  beautiful 
work  of  art,  noble,  subtle  and  full  of  humanity,  treated 


64  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

with  contempt  by  a  man  whose  vanity  has  blinded  the 
eyes  of  his  soul.  But  I  do  not  remember  making  any 
attempt  to  control  my  anger  at  Brighouse  ;  rather  did 
I  nurse  and  nourish  it,  and,  when  the  proper  time  came,  I 
poured  it  upon  him  with  generosity.  Harold — or  "  Brig," 
as  we  used  to  call  him — is  too  much  a  man  of  the  world 
not  to  know  how  to  deal  with  an  excitable  man  in  a 
temper,  and  I  remember  coming  away  from  our  quarrel 
feeling  rather  foolish  and  having  a  disturbing  admiration 
for  Brighouse's  dignity.  After  this  little  episode,  we 
were  always  very  polite  to  each  other,  and,  later  on,  when 
we  met  in  London,  our  meeting  was  not  without  some 
cordiality. 

Since  these  days  Brighouse  has  scored  a  big  success 
with  Hobsori's  Choice.  He  will  score  other  successes.  He 
will  die  reputed  and  rich.  He  will  live,  some  day,  in  a 
West  End  flat  and  have  a  cottage  in  the  country  from 
which  he  will  issue  at  regular  intervals  and  take  long  walks 
in  muddy  lanes.  I  believe  he  will  sedulously  cultivate 
the  friendship  of  those  who  may  be  of  service  to  him,  and 
he  will  drink  his  pint  of  beer  every  day  of  his  life.  He  will 
be  praised  twice  a  year  by  Sir  William  Robertson  Nicoll. 
Yes,  he  will  be  praised  twice  a  year  by  Sir  William 
Robertson  Nicoll.  And  when  Sir  William  dies,  Mr  St 
John  Adcock  will  take  up  the  cry.  And,  when  the  war  is 
over,  our  successful  young  dramatist  will  go  to  America, 
where  the  money  comes  from.  ...  I  should  like  to  see 
Harold  in  America. 

There  came  a  day  when  a  new  one-act  play  by  Houghton 
was  given  at  the  Manchester  Gaiety — a  play  I  subsequently 
saw  at  a  London  music  hall,  its  fit  home  ;  but  I  remember 
neither  the  play's  title  nor  its  plot.  I  recollect,  however, 
that  three  or  four  men  and  women  met  in  the  corridor  of 
a  London  hotel  and  talked  or  suggested  risky  things. 
Rather  stupid,  I  thought  it,  and  it  certainly  never  occurred 


HOUGHTON  AND  BR1GHOUSE         65 

to  me  that  it  was  immoral  or  nasty  ;  it  was  merely  a 
dramatic  experiment  that  did  not  quite  come  off.  But  the 
dramatic  critic  of  The  Manchester  Guardian — either  Mr 
A.  N.  Monkhouse  or  Mr  C.  E.  Montague  (I  think  the 
former) — "  went  for  "  it  tooth  and  nail  on  the  score  of 
its  alleged  immorality.  The  criticism  was  scathing  :  it 
made  a  wound  and  then  poured  acid  into  the  wound. 
Houghton  must  have  felt  the  criticism  sorely,  but  when 
I  met  him  next  day  he  pluckily  treated  it  as  a  matter  of 
no  consequence  whatever. 

"  A  reasonable  man  cannot  expect  always  to  be  under- 
stood," said  he,  "  and  I  suppose  The  Manchester  Guardian, 
which  has  always  been  very  good  to  me  in  the  past,  has 
a  right  to  scold  me  if  it  thinks  fit." 

"  A  scolding,  Houghton  ?  Why,  you  were  thrashed." 
"  Well,  I  s'pose  I  was.  But  I  can  stand  it." 
Vain  men  are  invariably  supersensitive,  and  for  that 
reason  I  think  Houghton  felt  every  word  and  act  of 
hostility  ;  but  he  never  showed  weakness  under  opposi- 
tion, and  he  could  hit  back  when  he  thought  it  worth 
while. 

I  once  witnessed  a  physical  assault  upon  him  after  a 
rather  rowdy  dinner,  when  we  all  took  to  ragging  each 
other.  There  was  no  excuse  for  the  assault,  except  what 
excuse  may  be  found  in  bitter  feeling  and  enmity,  but 
Houghton  received  the  blow  without  a  word,  and  we  who 
witnessed  it  neither  expostulated  with  his  assailant  nor 
expressed  sympathy  with  his  victim.  Houghton  paled 
and  his  large  eyes  gleamed,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  on 
a  subsequent  occasion  he  settled  the  matter  with  the  man 
who  was  responsible  for  his  humiliation. 

Only  a  very  few  men  really  understood  Houghton,  and 
those  were  men  who,  like  Walter  Mudie,  had  known  him 
intimately  in  boyhood.  Mudie  swore  by  him  and  would 
hear  no  word  against  him.  But  there  was  something  for- 
bidding in  Houghton's  nature — a  barricade  of  reserve  that 

E 


66  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

he  himself  had  not  wilfully  erected,  but  which  had !  been 
placed  there  by  Nature.  It  was  impossible  for  people 
who  met  him  casually  a  few  times  to  form  a  high  opinion 
either  of  his  intellect  or  of  his  personality.  I  remember 
Captain  James  E.  Agate,  a  most  original  and  brilliant 
colleague  of  Houghton's  on  The  Manchester  Guardian, 
once  saying  to  a  group  of  people  :  "  Don't  you  make  any 
mistake  about  Houghton.  He's  not  such  a  fool  as  he 
appears."  But  it  is  a  very  incomplete  man  who  requires 
such  a  double-edged  defence  as  that. 

Though  the  contrary  has  often  been  stated,  Houghton 
did  not,  I  believe,  take  much  interest  in  anybody's  work 
except  his  own.  He  patronised  a  young  bank  clerk, 
Charles  Forrest,  who  had  written  a  promising  little  play 
that  was  subsequently,  by  Houghton's  recommendation, 
I  believe,  given  in  Manchester  and  Liverpool ;  but  when 
he  came  in  contact  with  work  that  was,  in  many  respects, 
superior  to  his  own,  he  was  airily  superior  and  supercilious. 
He  once  asked  to  see  a  blank-verse  play  of  my  own  that 
was  given  at  the  Manchester  Gaiety,  but  as  I  was  aware 
that  he  knew  as  much  of  blank  verse  as  I  do  of  conic  sec- 
tions— which  is  nothing  at  all — I  refrained  from  passing 
on  my  MS.  to  him.  In  other  men's  work  he  looked  for 
faults  ;   in  his  own  he  found  perfection. 

I  need  scarcely  say  that  when  I  went  to  London  I  did 
not  seek  out  Houghton,  who  had  settled  down  in  the 
Metropolis  some  months  before  me.  But  we  met  in  the 
Strand,  he  wearing  a  fur-lined  overcoat  and  looking  a 
trifle  like  H.  B.  Irving,  and  I  carrying  a  load  of  review 
books  under  my  arm.  We  looked  at  each  other ;  we 
hesitated  ;  we  stopped.  Stanley  was  a  trifle  languid  and, 
after  a  few  inconsequent  remarks,  he  began  telling  me  the 
history  of  his  fur  overcoat.  He  had,  he  said,  bought  it 
for  five  pounds  or  seven  pounds,  or  some  such  ridiculously 
low  price,  and  he  had  bought  it  second-hand. 


HOUGHTON  AND  BRIGHOUSE         67 

And  (Fate  wills  these  things)  whenever  I  hear  the  name 
Stanley  Houghton  I  think  of  that  rather  tall,  rather 
aristocratic,  figure  in  the  Strand  wearing  its  second-hand 
fur-lined  overcoat  and  talking,  with  embarrassment, 
about  nothing  in  particular,  standing  first  on  one  foot  and 
then  on  the  other. 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  predict  with  certainty 
what  further  successes  Houghton  would  have  achieved 
had  he  lived,  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  his  sharp 
and  lively  talents  would  have  produced  plays  even  more 
noticeable  than  Hindis  Wakes.  A  little  more  experience  of 
life  would  probably  have  shown  him  the  futility  and  the 
destructive  effects  of  his  intellectual  snobbery.  He  was 
raw  and  crude,  and  success  did  not  mellow  or  enlarge  him. 


CHAPTER  VI 
SOME  WRITERS 

Arnold  Bennett— G.  K.  Chesterton — Lascelles  Abercrombie — 
Harold  Monro — John  Maseneld — Jerome  K.  Jerome — Sir 
Owen  Seaman — A.  A.  Milne 

OF  all  the  famous  writers  I  have  met,  I  have  found 
Arnold  Bennett  the  most  surprising.  I  do  not 
know  what  kind  of  man  I  expected  to  see  when 
it  was  arranged  that  I  should  meet  him,  but  I  certainly 
had  not  anticipated  beholding  the  curiously,  wrongly 
dressed  figure  that,  one  spring  afternoon  some  few  years 
ago,  walked  up  the  steps  leading  from  the  floor  of  Queen's 
Hall  to  the  foyer  of  the  gallery.  I  was  there  by  appoint- 
ment. I  was  a  friend  of  a  friend  of  his — Havergal  Brian, 
a  young  fire-eating  genius  from  the  Potteries,  and  Brian 
had  planned  this  curious  meeting.  It  was  during  the 
interval  of  an  afternoon  concert  of  a  Richard  Strauss 
Festival,  and  Ackte  was  singing. 

Bennett  was  rather  short,  thin,  hollow-eyed,  prominent- 
toothed.  He  wore  a  white  waistcoat  and  a  billycock  hat 
very  much  awry,  and  he  had  a  manner  of  complete  self- 
assurance.  I  cannot  say  that  I  was  unimpressed.  We 
were  introduced,  and  he  looked  at  me  drowsily,  indiffer- 
ently, insultingly  indifferently.  He  did  not  speak  and  I, 
nervous,  and  a  little  bewildered  by  the  colour  of  his  socks, 
which  I  at  that  moment  noticed  for  the  first  time,  blundered 
into  some  futility. 

"  I  don't  see  why,"  said  Bennett,  in  response. 

I  didn't  either,  so  far  as  that  went.  Desperately 
uncomfortable,    I    looked    round    for    Brian,    and    saw 

68 


SOME  WRITERS  69 

him  standing  fifteen  yards  or  so  away,  grinning 
malignantly. 

So  I  plunged  into  a  new  topic — with  even  more  disastrous 
results. 

"  I  notice,"  said  I,  "  that  you  continue  writing  for  The 
New  Age  in  spite  of  their  violent  attacks  on  you." 

"Yes."  he  answered  laconically,  and  he  looked  dizzily 
over  my  left  shoulder. 

Then  and  there  I  decided  that  I  would  not  speak  again 
until  he  had  spoken.  I  had  not  sought  the  interview  any 
more  than  he  had.     Presently  : 

"  I  have  been  working  very  hard  lately,"  I  heard.  I 
turned  quickly  to  him  ;  he  had  spoken  into  space.  I 
showed  a  polite  interest  and  he  thawed  a  little.  He  told 
me  something  of  the  number  of  words  and  hours  he 
wrote  a  day,  of  the  work  he  had  planned  for  the  next  two 
years,  of  the  regularity  of  his  methods,  of  his  disbelief 
in  the  value  of  "  inspiration."  I  seemed  to  have  heard  it 
all  before  about  Anthony  Trollope.  He  was  not  exactly 
loquacious,  but  he  communicated  a  great  deal  in  spite  of 
a  rather  unpleasant  impediment  in  his  speech.  .  .  . 

Soon  our  interview  was  over,  for  we  heard  the  orchestra 
tuning  up,  and  we  left  each  other  with  just  a  word  of 
farewell  and  without  a  sigh  of  regret. 

His  conversational  powers  never,  I  believe,  reach  the 
point  of  eloquence.  I  remember  G.  H.  Mair  giving  me  an 
amusing  description  of  a  breakfast  he  gave  to  Arnold 
Bennett  and  Stanley  Houghton  in  his  lodgings  in  Man- 
chester. Bennett  and  Houghton  had  not  previously  met, 
and  the  latter  was  young  and  inexperienced  enough  to 
nurse  the  expectation  that  the  personality  of  the  famous 
writer  would  be  as  impressive  as  his  work,  and  impressive 
in  the  same  way.  It  is  true  that  very  extraordinary  cir- 
cumstances would  be  necessary  to  make  breakfast  in 
Manchester  free  from  dullness,  but  Houghton  no  doubt 
thought  that  his  meeting  with  Bennett  was  an  extra- 


70  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

ordinary  circumstance.  In  the  event,  however,  he  was 
disillusioned. 

They  went  in  to  breakfast,  and  Bennett  sat  moody  and 
silent,  crumbling  a  piece  of  bread.  It  chanced  that  on 
being  admitted  to  the  house  Bennett  had  caught  sight 
of  a  cabman  carrying  a  particularly  large  trunk  down- 
stairs, and  he  began  to  question  Mair  closely  about 
the  incident,  Mair  explaining  that  a  fellow- lodger  was 
removing  that  morning  and  taking  all  his  luggage 
with  him. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Bennett,  a  little  impatiently,  "  but 
why  should  he  have  such  a  large  trunk  ?  It  was  enor- 
mous. I  don't  think  I  have  ever  seen  so  large  a  trunk 
before.     It  was  at  least  twice  the  usual  size." 

He  took  a  mouthful  of  bacon  and  spent  a  minute  in 
mastication.     Having  swallowed : 

"  Absurdly  large,"  he  said  challengingly.  "  I  can't 
think  why  anyone  should  wish  to  own  it.  Besides,  it's 
not  right  to  ask  any  man  to  carry  such  an  enormous 
weight.  That's  how  strangulated  hernia  is  caused.  Yes, 
strangulated  hernia." 

The  topic  did  not  prove  fruitful,  and  I  can  imagine 
Houghton  cudgelling  his  brains  to  discover  what  stran- 
gulated hernia  really  was,  and  Mair  saying  something 
witty  about  it.  But  with  his  second  cup  of  coffee  and 
his  marmalade  and  toast  Bennett  once  more  talked  of 
the  cabman,  the  impossible  trunk,  and  the  cabman's 
hypothetical  hernia. 

"  Of  course,"  he  remarked  meditatively,  "  the  man 
must  have  some  reason  for  owning  such  an  incredibly  large 
trunk,  but  I  confess  I  can't  guess  the  reason.  And,  in  any 
case,  it  is  bound  to  be  a  selfish  one.  Now,  strangulated 
hernia " 

And  that  was  all  that  issued  during  a  whole  hour  from 
one  of  the  cleverest  brains  in  England. 

That  Arnold  Bennett  is  almost  painfully  conscious  of 


SOME  WRITERS  71 

his  own  cleverness  there  is  no  manner  of  doubt.  He  is 
stupendously  aware  of  the  figure  he  cuts  in  contemporary 
literature.  He  is  for  ever  standing  outside  himself  and 
enjoying  the  spectacle  of  his  own  greatness,  and  he  whispers 
ten  times  a  day  :  "  Oh,  what  a  great  boy  am  I  !  "  I 
was  once  shown  a  series  of  privately  printed  booklets 
written  by  Bennett — booklets  that  he  sent  to  his  intimates 
at  Christmas  time.  They  consisted  of  extracts  from  his 
diary — a  diary  that,  one  feels,  would  never  have  been 
written  if  the  de  Goncourts  had  not  lived.  One  self- 
conscious  extract  lingers  in  the  mind  ;  the  spirit  of  it, 
though  not  the  words  (and  perhaps  not  the  facts)  is 
embodied  in  the  following: — "It  is  3  a.m.  I  have 
been  working  fourteen  hours  at  a  stretch.  In  these 
fourteen  hours  I  have  written  ten  thousand  words.  My 
book  is  finished— finished  in  excitement,  in  exaltation. 
Surely  not  even  Balzac  went  one  better  than  this  !  " 

A  great  writer  :  no  doubt,  a  very  great  writer  :  but 
you  might  gaze  at  him  across  a  railway  carriage  for  hours 
at  a  time  and  never  suspect  it. 

But  if  Arnold  Bennett  is  the  least  picturesque  and 
literary  of  figures,  G.  K.  Chesterton  is  the  most  picturesque 
and  literary.  His  mere  bulk  is  impressive.  On  one 
occasion  I  saw  him  emerge  from  Shoe  Lane,  hurry  into  the 
middle  of  Fleet  Street,  and  abruptly  come  to  a  standstill 
in  the  centre  of  the  traffic.  He  stood  there  for  some  time, 
wrapped  in  thought,  while  buses,  taxis  and  lorries  eddied 
about  him  in  a  whirlpool  and  while  drivers  exercised  to 
the  full  their  gentle  art  of  expostulation.  Having  come 
to  the  end  of  his  meditations  he  held  up  his  hand,  turned 
round,  cleared  a  passage  through  the  horses  and  vehicles 
and  returned  up  Shoe  Lane.  It  was  just  as  though  he  had 
deliberately  chosen  the  middle  of  Fleet  Street  as  the  most 
fruitful  place  for  thought.  Nobody  else  in  London  could 
have  done  it  with  his  air  of  absolute  unconsciousness,  of 


72  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

absent-mindedness.  And  not  even  the  most  stalwart 
policeman,  vested  with  full  authority,  could  have  dammed 
up  London's  stream  of  traffic  more  effectively. 

The  more  one  sees  of  Chesterton  the  more  difficult  it  is  to 
discover  when  he  is  asleep  and  when  he  is  awake.  He  may 
be  talking  to  you  most  vivaciously  one  moment,  and  the 
next  he  will  have  disappeared  :  his  body  will  be  there,  of 
course,  but  his  mind,  his  soul,  the  living  spirit  within  him, 
will  have  sunk  out  of  sight. 

One  Friday  afternoon  I  went  to  The  Daily  Herald  office 
to  call  on  a  friend.  As  I  entered  the  building  a  taxi 
stopped  at  the  door  and  I  found  G.  K.  C.  by  my  side. 

"  I  have  half-an-hour  for  my  article,"  said  he,  rather 
breathlessly.     "  Wait  here  till  I  come  back." 

The  first  sentence  was  addressed  to  himself,  the  second 
to  the  taxi-driver,  but  as  we  were  by  now  in  the  office  the 
driver  heard  nothing.  Chesterton  called  for  a  back  file  of 
The  Daily  Herald,  sat  down,  lit  a  cigar  and  began  to  read 
some  of  his  old  articles.  I  watched  him.  Presently,  he 
smiled.  Then  he  laughed.  Then  he  leaned  back  in  his 
chair  and  roared.  "  Good — oh,  damned  good  !  "  ex- 
claimed he.  He  turned  to  another  article  and  frowned  a 
little,  but  a  third  pleased  him  better.  After  a  while  he 
pushed  the  papers  from  him  and  sat  a  while  in  thought. 
"  And  as  in  uffish  thought  he  "  sat,  he  wrote  his  article, 
rapidly,  calmly,  drowsily.  Save  that  his  hand  moved, 
he  might  have  been  asleep.  Nothing  disturbed  him — ■ 
neither  the  noise  of  the  office  nor  the  faint  throb  of  his 
taxi-cab  rapidly  ticking  off  twopences  in  the  street  below. 
.  .  .  He  finished  his  article  and  rolled  dreamily  away. 

His  brother  Cecil  has  the  same  gift  of  detachment.  He 
can  write  anywhere  and  under  any  conditions.  I  have 
seen  him  order  a  mixed  grill  at  the  Gambrinus  in  Regent 
Street,  begin  an  article  before  his  food  was  served,  and  con- 
tinue writing  for  an  hour  while  the  dishes  were  placed 
before  him  and  allowed  to  go  stone  cold.     Like  most  men 


SOME  WRITERS  73 

in  Fleet  Street  who  do  a  tremendous  amount  of  work,  he 
has  always  plenty  of  time  for  play,  and  I  do  not  remember 
ever  to  have  come  across  him  when  he  was  not  ready  and 
willing  to  spend  a  half-hour  in  chat  in  one  of  the  thousand 
and  one  little  caravanserai  that  lurk  so  handily  in  the 
Strand  and  Fleet  Street. 

•  ••••••  • 

Of  poets  of  the  younger  generation  I  have  met  only 
three — Lascelles  Abercrombie,  Harold  Monro,  and  John 
Masefield.  Abercrombie  I  remember  as  a  lean,  spectacled 
man,  who  used  to  come  to  Manchester  occasionally  to  hear 
music  and,  I  think,  to  converse  intellectually  with  Miss 
Horniman.  Of  music  he  had  a  sane  and  temperate 
appreciation,  but  was  too  prone  to  condemn  modern 
work,  of  which,  by  the  way,  he  knew  nothing  and  which 
by  temperament  he  was  incapable  of  understanding.  He 
struck  me  as  cold  and  daring — cold,  daring  and  a  little 
calculating.  He  appeared  unexpectedly  one  day  at  my 
house,  stayed  for  lunch,  talked  all  afternoon,  and  went 
away  in  the  evening,  leaving  me  a  little  bewildered  by  the 
things  he  had  refrained  from  saying.  Really,  we  had 
nothing  in  common.  My  personality  could  not  touch  his 
genius  at  any  point,  and  the  things  he  wished  to  discuss — 
the  technicalities  of  his  craft,  philosophy,  aesthetics  and 
so  on — have  no  interest  for  me.  If  I  had  not  studied  his 
work  and  admired  it  wholeheartedly,  I  should  have  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  he  had  written  poetry  through  sheer 
cleverness  and  brightness  of  brain.  No  man  was  less  of  a 
poet  in  appearance  and  conversation.  He  professed  at  all 
times  a  huge  liking  for  beer,  but  I  never  saw  him  drink 
more  than  a  modest  pint,  and  his  pose  of  ''  muscular 
poet "  (a  school  founded  and  fed  by  Hilaire  Belloc) 
deceived  few. 

Harold  Monro  I  used  to  see  occasionally  in  the  Cafe 
Royal,  and  I  met  him  a  few  times  at  the  Crab  Tree  Club. 


74  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

I  remember  going  with  him,  early  one  morning  in  June, 
1914,  after  sitting  up  all  night,  to  the  Turkish  baths  in 
Jermyn  Street.  We  swam  a  little  in  a  tank  and  were  then 
conducted  to  a  cubicle,  where  I  wished  to  talk,  but  Monro 
was  heavy  with  sleep  and  soon  began  to  breathe  ster- 
torously.  A  few  days  later  he  received  me  rather  heavily 
at  his  office  at  The  Poetry  Bookshop,  read  some  of  my 
verses,  and  told  me  quite  frankly  that  he  did  not  con- 
sider me  much  of  a  poet.  A  sound,  solid  man,  Monro, 
and  he  has  written  at  least  one  poem — Trees — as 
delicate  and  as  beautiful  as  anything  done  in  our  time. 

But  neither  Monro  nor  Abercrombie,  greatly  gifted  and 
earnest  in  their  work  though  they  be,  fulfils  one's  concep- 
tion of  a  poetic  personality.  There  is  no  mystery  about 
them,  no  glamour  ;  they  do  not  arouse  wonder  or  surprise. 
John  Masefield,  on  the  other  hand,  has  an  invincible 
picturesqueness— a  picturesqueness  that  stamps  him  at 
once  as  different  from  his  fellows.  He  is  tall,  straight 
and  blue-eyed,  with  a  complexion  as  clear  as  a  child's. 
His  eyes  are  amazingly  shy,  almost  furtive.  His  manner 
is  shy,  almost  furtive.  He  speaks  to  you  as  though  he 
suspected  you  of  hostility,  as  though  you  had  the  power 
to  injure  him  and  were  on  the  point  of  using  that  power. 
You  feel  his  sensitiveness  and  you  admire  the  dignity  that 
is  at  once  its  outcome  and  its  protection. 

There  are  many  legends  about  Masefield  ;  he  is  the 
kind  of  figure  that  gives  rise  to  legends.  And,  as  he  is 
curiously  reticent  about  his  early  life,  some  of  the  most 
extravagant  of  these  legends  have  persisted  and  have,  for 
many  people,  become  true.  But  the  bare  facts  of  his  life 
are  interesting  enough.  As  a  young  man  he  grew  sick  of 
life,  of  the  kind  of  life  he  was  living,  and  went  to  sea  as 
a  sailor  before  the  mast.  He  had  neither  money  nor 
friends  ;  or,  if  he  had,  he  relinquished  both.  The  neces- 
sity to  earn  a  living  drove  him  into  many  adventures,  and 


SOME  WRITERS  75 

I  am  told  that  for  a  time  he  was  pot-boy  in  a  New  York 
drink-den.  Here  his  work  must  have  been  utterly  dis- 
tasteful, but  the  observing  eye  and  the  impressionable 
brain  of  the  poet  were  at  work  the  whole  time,  and  one 
can  see  clearly  in  some  of  Masefield's  long  narrative 
poems  many  evidences  of  those  bitter  New  York  days. 
How  Masefield  came  to  London  and  settled  in  Blooms- 
bury,  becoming  the  friend  of  J.  M.  Synge,  I  do  not  know. 
For  six  months  he  was  in  Manchester,  editing  the  column 
entitled  Miscellany  in  The  Manchester  Guardian,  and 
writing  occasional  theatrical  notices.  I  have  been  told 
by  several  of  his  colleagues  on  that  paper  that  Masefield's 
reserve  was  invulnerable  ;  he  quickly  secured  the  respect 
of  his  fellow- workers,  but  not  one  of  them  became  intimate 
with  him.  He  lived  in  dingy  lodgings,  he  worked  hard  and, 
at  the  end  of  six  months,  withdrew  to  London  on  the  plea 
that  he  found  it  impossible  to  do  literary  work  at  night. 

But  if  the  circumstances  of  Masefield's  life  are  little 
known,  his  spiritual  history  is  more  than  indicated  in  his 
work.  Here  one  sees  a  stricken  soul ;  a  nature  wounded 
and  a  little  poisoned  ;  a  nervous  system  agitated  and 
apprehensive.  His  mind  is  cast  in  a  tragic  mould  and 
his  soul  takes  delight  in  the  contemplation  of  physical 
violence.  His  personality,  as  I  have  said,  is  furtive.  He 
shrinks.  His  intimate  friends  may  have  heard  him 
laugh.     I  have  not. 

It  must  be  nearly  six  years  since  I  visited  him  at  his 
house  in  Well  Walk,  Hampstead.  It  was  a  miserably 
cold  afternoon  in  February,  and  though  it  was  not  yet 
twilight  the  blinds  of  the  drawing-room  were  drawn  and 
the  lights  already  lit.  Masefield's  conversation  was  in- 
tolerably cautious,  intolerably  shy.  In  a  rather  academic 
way  he  deplored  the  lack  of  literary  critics  in  England  ; 
the  art  of  criticism  was  dead  ;  the  essay  was  moribund. 
He  expanded  this  theme  perfunctorily,  walking  up  and 
down  the  room  slowly  and  never  looking  me  in  the  eyes 


76  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

once.  It  was  only  when,  at  length,  he  had  sat  down — not 
opposite  me,  but  with  the  side  of  his  face  towards  me — 
that,  very  occasionally,  his  eyes  would  seek  mine  with  a 
rapid  dart  and  turn  away  instantly,  and  at  such  moments 
it  seemed  as  though  he  almost  winced.  Such  shrinking, 
such  excessive  timidity,  whilst  arousing  my  curiosity,  also 
made  me  feel  no  little  discomfort,  and  I  was  glad  when  a 
spirit  kettle  was  brought  in,  with  cups  and  saucers,  and 
Masefield  began  to  make  tea. 

This  making  of  tea,  a  most  solemn  business,  reminded 
me  of  Crawford.  The  poet  walked  to  a  corner  of  the  room, 
took  therefrom  a  long  narrow  box  divided  into  a  number 
of  compartments  and  proceeded,  most  delicately,  to 
measure  out  and  mix  two  or  three  different  kinds  of  tea. 
The  teapot  was  next  heated,  the  blended  tea  thrown  in, 
and  boiling  water  immediately  poured  on  it.  And  then 
the  tea  was  timed,  Masefield  holding  his  watch  in  his  hand 
and  pouring  out  the  fluid  into  the  cups  at  the  psychological 
second.  .  .  .  He  ought,  I  think,  to  have  taken  a  little 
silver  key  from  his  waistcoat  pocket  and  locked  up  the  tea- 
box.  He  ought  to  have  taken  his  knitting  from  a  work- 
box.  He  ought  to  have  asked  me  if  I  had  yet  spoken  to 
the  new  curate.     But  he  did  none  of  these  things.  .  .  . 

Though  for  an  hour  he  continued  talking,  he  said 
nothing — at  least,  he  said  nothing  I  have  remembered. 
The  extraordinary  thing  about  him  was  that,  in  spite  of 
his  timidity,  his  seeming  apprehensiveness,  he  left  on  my 
mind  a  deep  impression  of  adventure — not  of  a  man  who 
sought  physical,  but  spiritual,  risks.  I  think  he  is  a  poet 
who  cannot  refrain  from  exacerbating  his  own  soul,  who 
must  at  all  costs  place  his  mind  in  danger  and  escape  only 
at  the  last  moment.  I  believe  he  is  intensely  morbid, 
delighting  to  brood  over  dark  things,  seeing  no  humour 
in  life,  but  full  of  a  baffled  chivalry,  a  nobility  thwarted  at 
every  turn. 


SOME  WRITERS  77 

A  man  of  a  very  different  type  is  Jerome  K.  Jerome, 
whom  I  met  at  the  National  Liberal  Club  and  elsewhere 
in  the  early  days  of  the  war.  Like  all  humorists,  he  is 
an  inveterate  sentimentalist ;  his  belief  in  human  nature 
is  as  wide-eyed  and  innocent  as  that  of  a  child.  He  is  an 
untidy,  prosperous,  middle-aged  man — very  kindly,  but 
a  little  intolerant.  His  mental  attitude  is  that  of  a  man 
sitting  a  little  apart  from  life,  alternately  amused  and 
saddened  by  the  things  he  sees.  In  the  drawing-room  of 
his  flat  at  Chelsea  he  seemed  a  little  out  of  place  ;  he  did 
not  harmonise  with  his  surroundings.  But  in  the  Club  he 
was  easy,  natural,  at  home.  More  than  twenty  years  ago 
I  heard  him  lecture  in  Manchester  ;  the  Jerome  of  to-day 
is  the  Jerome  of  those  far-off  years,  a  little  mellower 
perhaps,  a  little  quieter,  a  little  more  sentimental,  but 
essentially  the  same  in  appearance,  in  manner  and  in  his 
attitude  towards  life. 

•  *••••« 

I  have  met  other  humorists,  but  of  a  type  very  differ- 
ent from  that  represented  by  Jerome.  Sir  Owen  Seaman 
I  met  at  a  little  dinner  given  by  the  Critics'  Circle  at 
Gatti's  to  a  colleague  of  ours  who  was  on  the  point  of 
leaving  for  the  Front,  and  who,  alas  !  is  now  no  more. 
Sir  Owen  was  made  both  by  nature  and  training  for  a 
squarson — that  useful  but  fast- dying  gentleman  who  com- 
bines the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  squire  and  parson. 
His  personality,  rather  beefy  and  John  Bullish,  confirms 
one's  expectations.  He  made  an  exeeilent  chairman  at 
this  particular  dinner. 

•  •  •  •  •••• 

His  very  brilliant  assistant,  A.  A.  Milne,  I  once  inter- 
viewed for  a  now  defunct  Labour  paper.  I  was  invited 
to  the  office  of  Punch,  and  met  a  tall,  slim,  yeliow-haired 
and  blue-eyed  youth,  who  was  so  inordinately  shy  that, 
after  lialf-an-hour's  perfunctory  conversation,  I  dis- 
covered that  I  had  not  sufficient  material  for  a  paragraph, 


78  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

whereas  I  had  orders  to  make  a  column  article  of  the  inter- 
view. I  knew  instinctively  that  Milne  must  find,  as  I  do, 
a  good  deal  in  W.  S.  Gilbert's  writings  that  is  in  deplorable 
taste,  and  I  did  my  utmost  to  induce  him  to  say  something 
very  rude  about  Sullivan's  collaborator.  But  he  would 
not  "  bite."  He  nodded  and  smiled  at,  and  appeared  to 
agree  with,  all  the  savage  things  I  said  of  Gilbert,  but  he 
would  say  very  little — and  certainly  not  enough  for  my 
purpose — on  his  own  account.  I  tried  other  subjects, 
but  without  success  ;  finally,  I  got  up  in  despair,  thanked 
him  for  the  time  he  had  given  me  and  prepared  to  depart. 

"  But,"  said  Milne,  eyeing  me,  a  little  distrustfully,  "  I 
must  see  a  copy  of  your  article  before  it  is  printed." 

"  Why,  certainly,"  said  I,  and  that  evening  posted  it 
to  him,  expecting  to  see  it  back  with  perhaps  one  or  two 
minor  alterations. 

But  when  my  poor  article  arrived  back  (really,  I  thought 
it  an  excellent  piece  of  work)  I  could  scarcely  recognise  it, 
so  heavily  was  it  scored  out,  so  numerous  were  the  altera- 
tions. And  Milne's  accompanying  letter  was  scathing. 
I  remember  one  or  two  sentences.  ''  I  cannot  tell  you 
how  thankful  I  am,"  he  wrote,  "  that  I  insisted  on  seeing 
your  article  before  it  was  printed.  It  does  not  represent 
my  views  in  the  least ;  your  talent  for  misrepresentation 
is  remarkably  resourceful." 

When  the  article  was  finally  passed  for  publication  at 
least  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  it  was  from  Milne's  pen. 
He  wrote  one  or  two  other  stabbing  sentences  to  me,  from 
which  it  appeared  that,  however  numerous  his  virtues  may 
be,  he  is  unable  to  suffer  fools  gladly. 


CHAPTER  VII 
SIR  EDWARD  ELGAR 

THE  weaknesses  that  seem  to  be  inseparable  from 
genius — and,  most  particularly,  from  artistic 
genius — -are  precisely  those  one  would  not  expect 
to  discover  associated  with  greatness  of  mind.  It  would 
appear  that  few  men  are  so  great  as  their  work,  or,  if  they 
are,  their  greatness  is  spasmodic  and  evanescent.  Works 
of  genius,  it  is  sometimes  stated,  are  created  in  moods  of 
exaltation,  when  the  spirit  is  in  turmoil,  when  the  mind  is 
lit  and  the  nerves  are  tense.  In  some  cases  it  may  be  so. 
It  was  so,  I  believe,  in  the  case  of  Wagner,  who  had  long 
spells,  measured  by  years,  of  unproductiveness,  when  his 
creative  powers  lay  fallow  ;  and  it  was  so  in  the  case  of 
Hugo  Wolf,  Beethoven,  Shelley,  Poe,  Berlioz  and  many 
other  men  whose  names  spring  to  the  mind.  But  it 
certainly  was  not  so  with  Balzac  and  Dickens,  any  more 
than  it  is  to-day  with  Arnold  Bennett. 

There  is  in  Sir  Edward  Elgar's  work  a  strange  contra- 
diction :  great  depth  of  understanding  combined  with  a 
curious  fastidiousness  of  style  that  is  almost  finicking. 
Many  aspects  of  life  appeal  to  his  sympathies  and  to  his 
imagination,  but  an  innate  and  exaggerated  delicacy,  an 
almost  feminine  shrinking,  is  noticeable  in  even  his  strong- 
est and  most  outspoken  work.  ...  It  is  this  delicacy,  this 
shrinking,  that  to  the  casual  acquaintance  is  at  once  his 
most  conspicuous  and  most  teasing  characteristic. 

My  first  meeting  with  Elgar  was  ten  years  ago,  when, 
being  commissioned  to  interview  him  for.  a  monthly 
musical  magazine,  I  called  on  him  at  the  Midland  Hotel, 

79 


80  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

Manchester,  where  he  was  staying  for  a  night.  On  my 
way  to  his  room  I  met  him  in  the  corridor,  where  he 
carefully  explained  that  he  had  made  it  a  strict  rule  never 
to  be  interviewed  for  the  Press  and  that  under  no  circum- 
stances could  that  rule  be  broken.  His  firm  words  were 
spoken  with  hesitation,  and  it  was  quite  obvious  to  me 
that  he  was  feeling  more  than  a  trifle  nervous.  I  have 
little  doubt  that  this  nervousness  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
in  an  hour's  time  he  was  to  conduct  a  concert  at  the  Free 
Trade  Hall.  However,  he  was  kind  enough  to  loiter  for 
some  minutes  and  talk,  but  he  took  care,  when  I  left  him, 
to  remind  me  that  nothing  of  what  he  had  said  to  me  must 
appear  in  print. 

I,  of  course,  obeyed  him,  but,  in  place  of  an  interview, 
I  wrote  an  impressionistic  sketch  of  the  man  as  I  had 
seen  him  during  my  few  minutes'  conversation  at  the 
Midland  Hotel.  Of  this  impressionistic  sketch  I  remember 
nothing  except  that,  in  describing  his  general  bearing  and 
manner,  I  used  the  word  "  aristocratic."  At  this  word 
Elgar  rose  like  a  fat  trout  eager  to  swallow  a  floating  fly. 
It  confirmed  his  own  hopes.  And  I  who  had  perceived  this 
quality  so  speedily,  so  unerringly,  and  who  had  proclaimed 
it  to  the  world,  was  worthy  of  reward.  Yes  ;  he  would 
consent  to  be  interviewed.  The  ban  should  be  lifted  ;  for 
once  the  rule  should  be  broken.  A  letter  came  inviting 
me  to  Plas  Gwyn,  Hereford — a  letter  written  by  his  wife 
and  full  of  charming  compliments  about  my  article. 

So  to  Hereford  I  went  and  talked  music  and  chemistry. 
It  was  Christmas  week,  and  within  ten  minutes  of  my 
arrival  Lady  Elgar  was  giving  me  hot  dishes,  wine  and  her 
views  on  the  political  situation.  The  country  was  in  the 
throes  of  a  General  Election,  and  while  I  ate  and  drank  I 
heard  how  the  Empire  was,  as  Dr  Kendrick  Pyne  used  to 
say,  "  rushing  headlong  to  the  bow-wows."  Lady  Elgar 
did  not  seem  to  wish  to  know  to  what  particular  party  (if 
any)  I  belonged,  but  I  quickly  discovered  that  to  confess 


SIR  EDWARD  ELGAR  81 

myself  a  Radical  would  be  to  arouse  feelings  of  hostility 
in  her  bosom.  Radicals  were  the  Unspeakable  People. 
There  was  not  one,  I  gathered,  in  Hereford.  They 
appeared  to  infest  Lancashire,  and  some  had  been  heard 
of  in  Wales.  Also,  there  were  people  called  Non- 
conformists. Many  persons  were  Radicals,  many 
Nonconformists ;  but  some  were  both.  The  Radicals 
had  won  several  seats.  What  was  the  country  coming 
to  ?     Where  was  the  country  going  ? 

Where,  indeed  ?  I  did  not  allow  Lady  Elgar's  rather 
violent  political  prejudices  to  interfere  with  my  appetite, 
and  she  appeared  to  be  perfectly  satisfied  with  an  occa- 
sional sudden  lift  of  my  eyebrows,  and  such  ejaculations 
as  :  "  Oh,  quite  !  Quite  !  "  "  Most  assuredly  !  "  and 
"  Incredible  !  "  If  she  thought  about  me  at  all — and  I 
am  persuaded  she  did  not — she  must  have  believed  me 
also  to  be  a  Tory.  After  all,  had  not  I  called  her  husband 
"  aristocratic,"  and  is  that  the  sort  of  word  used  by  a 
Radical  save  in  contempt  ? 

After  lunch  Elgar  took  me  a  quick  walk  along  the  river- 
bank.  For  the  first  half-hour  I  found  him  rather  reserved 
and  non-committal,  and  I  soon  recognised  that  if  I  were  to 
succeed  in  obtaining  his  views  on  any  matter  of  interest 
I  must  rigidly  abstain  from  direct  questions.  But  when 
he  did  commit  himself  to  any  opinion,  he  did  so  in  the 
manner  of  one  who  is  sure  of  his  own  ground  and  cannot 
consider,  even  temporarily,  any  change  in  the  attitude  he 
has  already  assumed. 

I  found  his  views  on  musical  critics  amusing,  but  before 
proceeding  to  set  them  down  I  must  make  some  reference 
to  his  relations  with  Ernest  Newman.  Newman,  it  is 
generally  agreed,  is  unquestionably  the  most  brilliant, 
the  fairest-minded  and  the  most  courageous  writer  on 
music  in  England.  His  power  is  very  great,  and  he  has 
done  more  to  educate  public  opinion  on  musical  matters 
in  England  than  any  other  man.     For  some  little  period 


82  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

previous  to  the  time  of  which  I  am  writing  he  and  Elgar 
had  been  close  friends,  and  their  friendship  was  all  the 
stronger  because  it  rested  on  the  attraction  of  opposites. 
Elgar  was  an  ardent  Catholic,  a  Conservative  ;  Newman 
was  an  uncompromising  free-thinker  and  a  Radical.  Elgar 
was  a  pet  of  society,  a  man  careful  and  even  snobbish  in 
his  choice  of  his  friends,  whilst  Newman  cared  nothing  for 
society  and  would  be  friendly  with  any  man  who  interested 
or  amused  him. 

Up  to  the  time  Elgar  composed  The  Apostles  he  had  no 
more  whole-hearted  admirer  than  Newman,  but  this  work 
was  to  sever  their  friendship  and,  for  a  time,  to  bring 
bitterness  where  before  there  had  been  esteem  and  even 
affection.  Newman  was  invited  by  a  New  York  paper — I 
think  The  Musical  Courier — to  write  at  considerable  length 
on  The  Apostles.  As  his  opinion  of  this  work  was,  on  the 
whole,  unfavourable,  he  may  possibly  have  hesitated  to 
consider  an  invitation  the  acceptance  of  which  would  lead 
to  his  giving  pain  to  a  friend.  But  probably  Newman 
thought,  as  most  inflexibly  honest  men  would  think, 
that,  on  a  matter  of  public  concern,  silence  would  be 
cowardly.  In  the  event,  he  wrote  his  article  and  sent  it  to 
America,  also  forwarding  a  copy  to  Elgar  himself,  telling 
him  that,  though  it  went  against  his  feelings  of  friendship 
to  condemn  the  work,  he  thought  it  a  matter  of  duty  to 
speak  what  was  in  his  mind.  That  letter  and  that 
article  severed  their  friendship,  and  the  severance  lasted 
for  some  considerable  time. 

My  visit  to  Elgar  took  place  during  his  estrangement 
from  Newman,  and  when  I  mentioned  the  subject  of 
musical  criticism  to  him  it  was,  I  imagine,  with  the  hope 
that  the  name  of  the  famous  critic  would  crop  up.     It  did. 

"The  worst  of  musical  criticism  in  this  country,"  said 
Elgar,  "  is  that  there  is  so  much  of  it  and  so  little  that  is 
serviceable.  Most  of  those  who  are  skilled  musicians 
either  have  not  the  gift  of  criticism  or  they  cannot  express 


SIR  EDWARD  ELGAR  83 

their  ideas  in  writing,  and  most  of  those  who  can  write 
are  deplorably  deficient  in  their  knowledge  of  music.  For 
myself  I  never  read  criticism  of  my  own  work  ;  it  simply 
does  not  interest  me.  When  I  have  composed  or  pub- 
lished a  work,  my  interest  in  it  wanes  and  dies  ;  it  belongs 
to  the  public.  What  the  professional  critics  think  of  it 
does  not  concern  me  in  the  least." 

Though  I  knew  that  Elgar  had  on  previous  occasions 
given  expression  to  similar  views,  his  statement  amazed 
me.     So  I  pressed  him  a  little. 

"  But  suppose,"  I  urged,  "  a  new  work  of  yours  were  so 
universally  condemned  by  the  critics  that  performances 
of  it  ceased  to  take  place.  Would  you  not  then  read  their 
criticisms  in  order  to  discover  if  there  was  not  some  truth 
in  their  statements  ?  " 

"  It  is  possible,  but  I  do  not  think  I  should.  But  your 
supposition  is  an  inconceivable  one :  there  is  never 
universal  agreement  among  musical  critics.  I  think  you 
will  notice  that  many  of  them  are,  from  the  aesthetic  point 
of  view,  absolutely  devoid  of  principle  ;  I  mean,  they  are 
victims  of  their  own  temperaments.  They,  as  the  school- 
girl says,  '  know  what  they  like.'  The  music  they  con- 
demn is  either  the  music  that  does  not  appeal  to  their 
particular  kind  of  nervous  system  or  it  is  the  music  they 
do  not  understand.  They  have  no  standard,  no  norm,  no 
historical  sense,  no " 

He  stammered  a  little  and  waved  a  vague  arm  in  the  air. 

"  There  are  exceptions,  of  course,"  I  ventured.  '  New- 
man, for  example." 

!*  No  ;  Ernest  Newman  is  not  altogether  an  exception. 
He  is  an  unbeliever,  and  therefore  cannot  understand 
religious  music — music  that  is  at  once  reverential,  mystical 
and  devout." 

"  '  Devout '  ?  "  whispered  I  to  myself.     Aloud  I  said  : 

k'  A  man's  reason,  I  think,  may  reject  a  religion,  though 
his  emotional  nature  may  be  susceptible  to  its  slightest 


84  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

appeal.     Besides,  Newman  has  a  most  profound  admira- 
tion for  your  The  Dream  ofGerontius" 

Elgar  was  silent  for  a  few  minutes.  Then,  with  an 
air  of  detachment  and  with  great  inconsequence,  he 
said  : 

'  Baughan,  of  The  Daily  News,  cannot  hum  a  melody 
correctly  in  tune.  He  looks  at  music  from  the  point  of 
view  of  a  man  of  letters.  So  does  Newman,  fine  musician 
though  he  is.  Newman  advocates  programme  music. 
Now,  I  do  not  say  that  programme  music  should  not  be 
written,  for  I  have  composed  programme  music  myself. 
But  I  do  maintain  that  it  is  a  lower  form  of  art  than 
absolute  music.  Newman,  I  believe,  refuses  to  acknow- 
ledge that  either  kind  is  necessarily  higher  or  lower  than 
the  other.  He  has,  as  I  have  said,  the  literary  man's 
point  of  view  about  music.  So  have  many  musical 
critics." 

"  And  so,"  I  interpolated,  "  if  one  has  to  accept  what 
you  say  as  correct,  have  many  composers,  and  composers 
also  who  are  not  specifically  literary.  And,  after  what  you 
have  said,  I  find  that  strange.  Take  the  case  of  Richard 
Strauss,  all  of  whose  later  symphonic  poems  have  a  pro- 
gramme, a  literary  basis.  Do  you,  for  that  reason,  declare 
that  Strauss  regards  music  from  the  literary  man's  point 
of  view — Strauss  who,  of  all  living  musicians,  is  the 
greatest  ?  " 

He  paused  for  a  few  moments,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that 
our  pace  quickened  as  we  left  the  bank  of  the  river  and 
made  for  a  pathway  across  a  meadow.  But  he  would  not 
take  up  the  argument ;   stammering  a  little,  he  said  : 

lt  Richard  Strauss  is  a  very  great  man — a  fine  fellow." 

But  as  that  was  not  the  point  under  discussion,  I  felt 
that  either  his  mind  was  wandering  or  that  he  could  think 
of  no  reply  to  my  objection. 

A  little  later,  on  our  way  home,  we  discussed  the 
younger  generation  of  composers,  and  I  found  him  very 


SIR  EDWARD  ELGAR  85 

appreciative  of  the  work  done  by  his  juniors.  He  par- 
ticularly mentioned  Havergal  Brian,  a  composer  who  has 
more  than  justified  what  Elgar  prophesied  of  him.  though 
perhaps  not  in  the  manner  Elgar  anticipated. 

Apropos  of  something  or  other,  Elgar  said,  I  think  quite 
needlessly  and  a  little  vainly  : 

"  You  must  not,  as  many  people  appear  to  do,  imagine 
that  I  am  a  musician  and  nothing  else.  I  am  many  things  ; 
I  find  time  for  many  things.  Do  not  picture  me  always 
bending  over  manuscript  paper  and  writing  down  notes  ; 
months  pass  at  frequent  intervals  when  I  write  nothing  at 
all.     At  present  I  am  making  a  study  of  chemistry." 

I  think  I  was  expected  to  look  surprised,  or  to  give  vent 
to  an  exclamation  of  surprise,  but  I  did  neither,  for  I  also 
had  made  a  study  of  chemistry,  and  it  seemed  to  me  the 
kind  of  work  that  any  man  of  inquiring  mind  might  take 
up.  I  did  not  for  one  moment  imagine  that  I  was  living 
in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  when  practically 
all  British  musicians  were  musicians  and  nothing  else  and 
not  always  even  musicians. 

When  we  had  returned  to  the  house  we  sat  before  a 
large  fire  and,  under  the  soothing  influence  of  warmth  and 
semi-darkness,  stopped  all  argument.  In  the  evening 
Lady  Elgar  accompanied  me  to  the  station,  and  all  the 
way  from  Hereford  to  Manchester  I  turned  over  in  my 
mind  the  strange  problem  that  was  presented  to  me  by  the 
fact  that,  though  I  was  a  passionate,  almost  fanatical 
lover  of  Elgar's  music,  the  creator  of  that  music  attracted 
me  not  at  all.  I  saw  in  his  mind  a  daintiness  that  was 
irritating,  a  refinement  that  was  distressingly  self- 
conscious. 

Some  years  later  Sir  Edward  Elgar  moved  to  London, 
and  when  I  saw  him  in  his  new  home  he  tried  to  prove  to 
me  that  living  in  London  was  cheaper  than  living  in  the 
country. 

His  attitude  towards  me  on  this  occasion  was  peculiarly 


86  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

strange.  I  represented  a  Labour  paper,  but  Elgar  did  not 
know  that  I  was  at  the  same  time  writing  leading  articles 
for  a  London  Conservative  daily.  He  treated  me  with 
the  most  careful  kindness,  a  kindness  so  careful,  indeed, 
that  it  might  be  called  patronising.  It  soon  became  quite 
clear  to  me  that  he  imagined  I  myself  came  from  the 
labouring  classes,  but  I  cannot  boast  that  honour,  and  as 
he,  the  aristocrat,  was  in  contact  with  me,  the  plebeian, 
it  was  his  manifest  duty  and  his  undoubted  pleasure  to 
help  me  along  the  upward  path.  I  was  advised  to  read 
Shakespeare. 

'  Shakespeare,"  said  he,  "  frees  the  mind.  You,  as 
a  journalist,  will  find  him  useful  in  so  far  as  a  close  study 
of  his  works  will  purify  your  style  and  enlarge  your 
vocabulary." 

"  Which  of  the  plays  would  you  advise  me  to  read  ?  " 
asked  I,  with  simulated  innocence  and  playing  up  to  him 
with  eyes  and  voice. 

The  astounding  man  considered  a  minute  and  then 
mentioned  half-a-dozen  plays,  the  titles  of  which  I  care- 
fully wrote  down  in  my  pocket-book. 

"  And  Ruskin,"  he  added  as  an  afterthought.  "  Oh, 
yes,  and  Cardinal  Newman.  Newman's  style  is  perhaps 
the  purest  style  of  any  man  who  wrote  in  the  nineteenth 
century." 

"  I  do  not  think  so,"  said  I,  thoroughly  roused  and  for- 
getting to  play  my  part.  "  The  Apologia  is  slipshod.  My 
own  style,  faulty  though  it  may  be,  is  more  correct,  more 
lucid,  even  more  distinguished  than  Cardinal  Newman's." 

He  turned  away,  either  angry  or  amused. 

"It  is  true,"  said  I,  with  warmth.  "  Anyone  who  has 
tried  for  years,  as  I  have  done,  to  master  the  art  of  writing, 
and  who  examines  the  Apologia  carefully  will  perceive  at 
once  that  it  is  shamefully  badly  written.  For  two  genera- 
tions it  has  been  the  fashion  to  praise  Newman's  style,  but 
those  who  have  done  so  have  never  read  him  in  a  critical 


SIR  EDWARD  ELGAR  87 

spirit.  I  would  infinitely  prefer  to  have  written  a  racy 
book  like — well,  like  Moll  Flanders,  where  the  English  is 
beautifully  clean  and  strong,  than  the  sloppy  Apologia." 

'  Moll    Flanders,"     he    said    questioningly ;      "  Moll 
Flanders  ?     I  do  not  know  the  book." 

"It  is  all  about  a  whore,"  said  I  brutally,  "  written  by 
one  Defoe." 

And  that,  of  course,  put  an  end  to  our  conversation.     I 
rose  to  leave. 

The  impression  left  on  my  mind  by  my  two  visits  to 
Elgar  is  definite  enough,  but  I  am  willing  to  believe 
that  it  does  not  represent  the  man  as  he  truly  is.  He  is 
abnormally  sensitive,  abnormally  observant,  abnormally 
intuitive.  Like  almost  all  men,  he  is  open  to  flattery,  but 
the  flattery  must  be  applied  by  means  of  hints,  praise 
half  veiled,  innuendo.  If  you  gush  he  will  freeze  ;  if  you 
praise  directly,  he  will  wince.  His  mind  is  essentially 
narrow,  for  he  shrinks  from  the  phenomena  in  life  that 
hurt  him  and  he  will  not  force  himself  to  understand 
alien  things.  His  intellect  is  continually  rejecting  the 
very  matters  that,  in  order  to  gain  largeness,  tolerance 
and  a  full  view  of  life,  it  should  understand  and  accept. 
Yet,  within  its  narrow  confines,  his  brain  functions  most 
rapidly  and  with  a  clear  light. 

I  have  been  told  by  members  of  the  various  orchestras 
he  has  conducted  that  when  interpreting  a  work  like  The 
Dream  of  Gerontius  his  face  is  wet  with  tears. 

He  has  a  proper  sense  of  his  own  dignity,  and  it  is 
doubtful  if  he  exaggerates  the  importance  of  his  own 
powers.  Many  years  ago,  as  I  have  related,  I  employed 
the  word  "  aristocrat  "  in  describing  him,  and  to-day  I 
feel  that  that  word  must  stand.  He  has  all  the  strength 
of  the  aristocrat  and  many  of  the  aristocrat's  weaknesses. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
INTELLECTUAL  FREAKS 

IN  the  most  tragic  and  most  trying  moments  of  life  it 
is  well  to  turn  aside  from  one's  sorrows  and  refresh 
one's  mind  and  strengthen  one's  soul  by  gazing  upon 
the  follies  of  others.     Those  others  gaze  on  ours. 

In  my  spiritual  adventures  I  have  met  many  amazingly 
freakish  people.  Ten  years  ago  the  Theosophical  Society 
overflowed  with  them.  They  were  cultured  without 
being  educated,  credulous  but  without  faith,  bookish  but 
without  learning,  argumentative  but  without  logic.  The 
women,  serene  and  grave,  swam  about  in  drawing-rooms, 
or  they  would  stand  in  long,  attitudinising  ecstasies,  their 
skimpy  necks  emerging  from  strange  gowns,  their  bodies 
as  shoulderless  as  hock  bottles.  The  men  paddled  about 
in  the  same  rooms,  but  I  found  them  less  amusing  than  the 
women. 

"  You  were  a  horse  in  your  last  incarnation,"  said  a 
fuzzy- haired  giantess  to  me  one  evening,  two  minutes  after 
we  had  been  introduced. 

"  Oh,  how  disappointing !  "  I  exclaimed.  "  I  had 
always  imagined  myself  an  owl.  I  often  dream  I  was  an 
owl.  I  fly  about,  you  know,  or  sit  on  branches  with  my 
eyes  shut." 

"No ;  a  horse ! "  shouted  the  giantess,  with  much  asperity. 
"  I'm  not  arguing  with  you.  I'm  merely  telling  you. 
And  I  don't  think  you  were  a  very  nice  horse  either." 

"  No  ?     Did  I  bite  people  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  you  bit  and  kicked.  And  you  did  other  dis- 
agreeable things  besides.     Now,  /  was  a  swan." 

88 


INTELLECTUAL  FREAKS  89 

I  evinced  a  polite  but  not  enthusiastic  interest. 

"  You  would  make  an  imposing  swan,"  I  observed. 

"  Yes.     I  used  to  glide  about  on  ponds,  like  this." 

She  proceeded  to  "  glide  "  round  and  round  the  corner 
of  the  room  in  which  we  were  sitting.  She  arched  her 
neck,  raised  her  ponderous  legs  laboriously  and  moved 
about  like  a  pantechnicon.  Her  face  assumed  a  disagree- 
able expression  and  I  thought  of  a  rather  good  line  in  one 
of  my  own  poems  : 

And  swans  sulked  largely  on  the  yellow  mere. 

"  And  how  much  of  your  previous  incarnation  do  you 
remember  ?  "  I  asked,  when  she  had  finished  sulking 
largely  in  the  yellow  drawing-room. 

"  Oh,  quite  a  lot.  It  comes  back  to  me  in  flashes.  I 
was  very  lonely- — oh,  so  lonely." 

She  gave  me  a  quick  look,  and  I  began  to  talk  of  William 
J.  Locke,  who,  a  few  days  previously,  had  published  a 
new  book.  Resenting  my  change  of  subject,  she  left 
me  and,  a  few  minutes  later,  as  I  was  eating  a  water- 
cress sandwich,  I  heard  her  saying  to  a  yellow-haired 
male  : 

"  You  were  a  horse  in  your  last  incarnation." 

I  met  this  lady  on  other  occasions,  and  always  she  was 
occupied  in  telling  men  that  they  had  been  horses  and  she 
a  swan — an  oh-so-lonely  swan. 

"  Why,"  said  I  to  my  hostess  one  day,  "  don't  Madame 
X.'s  friends  look  after  her  ?  See — she  is  arching  her  neck 
over  there  in  the  corner,  and  I  am  perfectly  certain  she  has 
told  the  man  with  her  that  he  has  been,  is,  or  is  going  to  be 
a  horse." 

For  a  moment  my  hostess  looked  concerned. 

"  Look  after  her  ?     What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  Well,  she  is  obviously  insane." 

"  On  the  contrary,  she  is  the  most  subtle  exponent  we 
have  of  Madame  Blavatsky's  Secret  Doctrine.    Eccentric, 


90  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

perhaps,  but  as  lucid  a  brain  as  Mr  G.  R.  S.  Mead's  or  as 
Colonel  Olcott's.  You  should  get  her  to  describe  your 
aura.  She  is  excellent,  too,  in  Plato.  She  doesn't  under- 
stand a  word  of  Greek,  but  she  gets  at  his  meaning 
intuitively.  There  is  something  cosmic  about  her.  You 
know  what  I  mean." 

"  Oh,  quite,  quite."     (But  what  did  she  mean  ?) 

"  Cosmic  consciousness  is  a  most  enthralling  subject," 
continued  my  hostess,  digging  the  hockey-stick  she  always 
carried  with  her  well  into  the  hearthrug.  '  Walt  Whit- 
man had  it,  you  know." 

"  Badly  ?  "  I  inquired. 

She  appeared  puzzled. 

"  I  don't  quite  know  what  you  mean  by  '  badly.'  He 
could  identify  himself  with  anything — the  wind,  a  stone, 
a  jelly-fish,  an  arm-chair,  a  .  .  .  a  .  .  .  oh,  everything  ! 
They  were  he  and  he  was  they.  He  thought  cosmically. 
Fourth  dimension,  you  know.  Edward  Carpenter  and  all 
that." 

I  rather  admired  this  way  she  had  of  talking — a  little 
like  the  Duke  in  G.  K.  Chesterton's  Magic. 

"  Oh,  do  go  on  !"  I  urged  her. 

"  What  I  always  say  is,"  she  continued,  "  why  stop  at 
a  fourth  dimension  ?  Someone  has  written  a  book  on  the 
fourth  dimension,  and  some  day  perhaps  I  shall  write  one 
on  the  fifth." 

"  A  book  ?  A  real  book  ?  Do  you  mean  to  say  you 
could  write  a  book  ?     How  clever  !     How  romantic  !  " 

"  Well,  I  have  thought  about  it.  One  is  influenced. 
One  has  influences.  The  consciousness  of  the  ultimate 
truth  of  things,  the  truth  that  suffuses  all  things,  the 
cosmic  nature  of — well,  the  cosmos.  Do  you  see  ? 
Tennyson's  In  Memoriam.'" 

"  Yes ;    Tennyson's  In  Memoriam  does   help,  doesn't 

it?" 

"  Did  I  say  Tennyson's  In  Memoriam  ?     I  really  meant 


INTELLECTUAL  FREAKS  91 

Shelley's  Revolt  of  Islam.  The  fourth  dimension  is  played 
out.  It's  done  with.  It  was  true  so  far  as  it  went,  but 
how  far  did  it  go  ?  " 

"  Only  a  very  little  way,"  I  answered. 

'  Yes,  but  Nietzsche  goes  much  farther.  Have  you 
read  Nietzsche  ?  No  ?  I  haven't,  either.  But  I  have 
heard  Orage  talk  about  him.  Nietzsche  says  we  can  all 
do  what  we  want.  We  must  dare  things.  We  must  be 
blond  beasts.  Mary  Wollstonecraft  and  her  set,  you  know. 
Godwin  and  those  people." 

She  waved  her  hockey-stick  recklessly  in  the  air  and 
marched  inconsequently  away.  Nearly  all  the  Theoso- 
phists  I  met  were  like  that — inconsequent,  bent  on  writing 
books  they  never  did  write,  talkers  of  divine  flapdoodle, 
inanely  clever,  cleverly  inane.  Dear  freaks  I  used  to  meet 
in  days  gone  by  ! — where  are  you  now  ? — where  are  you 
now  ? 

•  ■•••••• 

A  freak  who  ultimately  lost  all  reason  and  was  confined 
in  a  private  asylum  used  to  sit  at  the  same  desk  that  I  did 
when,  many  years  ago,  I  was  a  shipping  clerk  in  Man- 
chester. This  man,  whose  name  was  not,  but  should  have 
been,  Bundle,  had  considerable  private  means,  but  some 
obscure  need  of  his  nature  drove  him  to  discipline  himself 
by  working  eight  hours  a  day  for  three  pounds  a  week. 
The  three  pounds  was  nothing  to  him,  but  the  eight  hours 
a  day  meant  everything.  He  was  a  conscientious  worker, 
but  I  think  I  have  already  indicated  that  his  intelligence 
was  not  robust.  He  had  no  delusion  ;  he  merely  possessed 
a  misdirected  sense  of  duty. 

One  day  he  left  us,  and  a  few  months  later  I  met  him 
in  Market  Street.  He  looked  prosperous,  smart  and 
intensely  happy. 

"  Are  you  busy  ?  "  he  asked.  '  No  ?  Well,  come  with 
me." 

He  slipped  his  arm  in  mine,  led  me  into  Mosley  Street, 


e 


92  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

and  stopped  in  front  of  the  large,  dismal  office  of  the  Calico 
Printers'  Association. 

"That,"  said  he,  "is  mine.  Now,  come  into  Albert 
Square." 

When  we  had  arrived  there  he  pointed  to  the  Town  Hall. 

"  That  also  is  mine.  The  Lord  Mayor  gave  it  to  me 
with  a  golden  key.     Here  is  the  golden  key." 

Producing  an  ordinary  latchkey  from  his  pocket,  he 
carefully  held  it  in  the  palm  of  his  hand  for  my  inspection. 

"  It  is,"  he  announced,  "  studded  with  diamonds.  But 
you  can't  see  the  diamonds.  Crafty  Lord  Mayor  !  You 
don't  catch  him  napping.  He's  hidden  them  deep  in  the 
sold.   .  1  ." 

I  enjoyed  this  poor  fellow's  company  more  than  I  did 
that  of  a  very  old  woman  to  whom  I  was  introduced  in  a 
pauper  asylum.  She  was  sitting  on  a  low  stool  and, 
pointing  at  her  head  with  her  skinny  forefinger,  "  It's 
pot !     It's  pot !  "  she  said. 

But  even  she  provided  me  with  more  exhilaration  than 
do  the  tens  (or  perhaps  hundreds)  of  thousands  of  real 
freaks  who,  I  imagine,  inhabit  every  part  of  the  globe.  I 
allude  to  the  vast  throng  of  people  who  arise  at  eight  or 
thereabouts,  go  to  the  City  every  morning,  work  all  day 
and  return  home  at  dusk  ;  who  perform  this  routine  every 
day,  and  every  day  of  every  year ;  who  do  it  all  their  lives  ; 
who  do  it  without  resentment,  without  anger,  without  even 
a  momentary  impulse  to  break  away  from  their  surround- 
ings. Such  people  amaze  and  stagger  one.  To  them  life 
is  not  an  adventure  ;  indeed,  I  don't  know  what  they  con- 
sider it.  They  marry  and,  in  their  tepid,  uxorious  way, 
love.  But  love  to  them  is  not  a  mystery,  or  an  adventure, 
and  its  consummation  is  not  a  sacrament.  They  do  not 
travel ;  they  do  not  want  to  travel.  They  do  not  even 
hate  anybody. 

All  these  people  are  freaks  of  the  wildest  description  ; 
yet  they  imagine  themselves  to  be  the  backbone  of  the 


INTELLECTUAL  FREAKS  93 

Empire.  Perhaps  they  are.  Perhaps  every  nation  requires 
a  torpid  mass  of  people  to  act  as  a  steadying  influence. 

In  the  suburbs  of  Manchester  these  people  abound.  I 
know  a  man  still  in  his  twenties  who  keeps  hens  for  what 
he  calls  "  a  hobby."  Among  his  hens  he  finds  all  the 
excitement  his  soul  needs.  The  sheds  in  which  they  live 
form  the  boundaries  of  his  imagination.  I  should  esteem 
this  man  if  he  kicked  against  his  destiny  ;  but  he  loved 
it,  until  the  Army  conscripted  him.  God  save  the  world 
from  those  who  keep  hens  ! 

I  know  a  man  who  has  been  to  Douglas  eighteen  times 
in  succession  for  his  fortnight's  holiday  in  the  summer. 
Douglas  is  his  heaven  ;  Manchester  and  Douglas  are  his 
universe.  No  place  so  beautiful  as  Douglas  ;  no  place  so 
familiar ;  no  place  so  satisfying.  After  all,  Douglas  is 
always  Douglas.  Moreover,  Douglas  is  always  miracu- 
lously "  there."  God  save  the  world  from  men  who  go 
to  Douglas  eighteen  times  ! 

I  know  a  man  who  hates  his  wife  and  still  lives  with  her. 
He  is  respectable,  soulless,  saving,  a  punctual  and  regular 
churchgoer,  a  hard  bargain- driver.  He  walks  with  his 
eyes  on  the  ground.  He  has  always  lived  in  the  same 
suburb.  He  will  always  live  in  the  same  suburb.  God 
save  the  world  from  men  who  always  live  in  the  same 
suburb  ! 

I  know  a  man  .  .  . 

But  this  is  getting  very  monotonous.  Besides,  why 
should  I  particularise  any  more  freaks  when  all  of  them, 
perhaps,  are  as  familiar  to  you  as  they  are  to  me  ? 

Then  there  is  the  literary  freak  ;  not  the  poseur,  not  the 
man  who  wishes  to  be  thought  "  cultured  "  and  intellectual, 
but  the  scholarly  man  who,  during  an  industrious  life,  has 
amassed  a  vast  amount  of  literary  knowledge,  but  whose 
appreciation  of  literature  is  lukewarm  and  without  zest. 
Very,  very  rarely  is  the  great  writer  a  scholar.    Dr  Johnson 


94  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

was  a  scholar,  but,  divine  and  adorable  creature  though 
he  was,  he  was  not  a  great  writer.  None  of  the  great 
Victorians  had  true  scholarship,  and  very  few  even  of  the 
Elizabethans.  And  to-day  ?  Well,  one  may  consider 
Thomas  Hardy,  Joseph  Conrad,  H.  G.  Wells,  Bernard 
Shaw,  Arnold  Bennett  and  G.  K.  Chesterton  as  great 
writers  ;  if  you  do  not  concede  me  all  these  names,  you 
must  either  deny  that  we  have  any  great  writers  at  all 
(which  is  absurd)  or  produce  me  the  names  of  six  who  are 
greater  than  those  I  have  named  (and  the  latter  you 
cannot  do).  Have  any  of  these  anything  approaching 
scholarship  ? 

And  yet  in  our  universities  are  scores  of  men  who  are 
regarded  as  possessing  greater  literary  gifts  than  those 
who  actually  produce  literature.  These  learned,  owlish 
creatures  pose  pontifically.  Whenever  a  new  book  comes 
out  they  read  an  old  one  !  The  present  generation,  they 
say,  is  without  genius.  But  they  have  always  said  it. 
They  said  it  when  Dickens,  Thackeray  and  Charlotte 
Bronte  were  writing.  I  have  no  doubt  they  said  it  in 
Shakespeare's  time.  The  present  generation  teems  with 
genius,  but  our  "  scholarly '  mandarins  know  it  not. 
How  barren  is  that  knowledge  which  lies  heavy  in  a  man's 
mind  and  does  not  fertilise  there.  When  one  considers 
the  matter,  how  essentially  dull  and  stupid  and  brainless 
is  the  man  devoid  of  ideas  ! 

One  of  these  bald-pated  freaks  is  well  known  to  me. 
He  moves  heavily  about  in  a  quadrangle.  He  delivers 
lectures.  He  has  written  books.  He  passes  judgment. 
He  annotates.  He  writes  an  occasional  review.  Funny 
little  freak  !  Great  little  freak,  who  knows  so  much  and 
understands  so  little.  .  .  .  When  England  wakes  (and  I 
do  not  believe  that  even  yet,  after  nearly  four  years  of 
war,  England  is  really  awake)  such  men  will  pass  through 
life  unregarded  and  neglected  ;  they  will  sit  at  home  in  a 
back  room,  and  their  relatives  and  friends  will  love  and 


INTELLECTUAL  FREAKS  95 

pity  them,  as  one  loves  and  pities  a  poor  fellow  whose 
temperament  has  made  him  a  wastrel,  or  as  one  pities  a 
man  who  has  to  be  nursed. 


People  of  the  Play:    A  handful  of  literary  freaks. 

Scene  :  A  drawing-room  in  Tooting,  or  Acton,  or  Highgate, 
or  Ealing,  or  any  funny  old  place  where  the  middle 
classes  live. 

Time:   8  p.m.  on  (generally)  Thursday. 

Mrs  Arnold.  Now  that  Miss  Vera  Potting,  M.A.,  has 
finished  reading  her  most  interesting  paper  on  Mr 
John  Masefield,  the  subject  is  open  for  discussion. 
Perhaps  you,  Mr  Mather- Johnstone,  will  give  us  a 
few  thoughts — yes,  a  few  thoughts.  (She  smiles 
wanly  and  gazes  round  the  room.)  A  most  interesting 
paper  /  call  it. 

Rev.  Mather- Johnstone,  MA.  Miss  Potting's  most 
interesting  paper  is — well,  most  interesting.  I  must 
confess  I  have  read  nothing  of — er — Mr  Masefield's. 
I  prefer  the  older  poets — Cowper,  Bowles'  Sonnets, 
and  the  beautifully  named  Felicia  Hemans. 
Fe-lic-i-a  !  To  what  sweet  thoughts  does  not  that 
name  give  rise  !  But  it  has  been  a  revelation  to  me 
to  learn  that  a  popular  poet  (and  Miss  Potting  has 
assured  us  that  Mr  Masefield  is  popular)  should  so 
freely  indulge  in  language  that,  to  say  the  least,  is 
violent,  and  I  am  glad  to  say  that  such  language  is 
not  to  be  found  in  the  improving  stanzas  of  Eliza 
Cook. 

Mr  S.  Wan  ley.  I  have  read  some  verses  of  Mr  Mase- 
field's in  a  very — well — advanced  paper  called,  if  my 
memory  does  not  deceive  me,  The  English  Review. 
I  did  not  like  those  verses.     I  did  not  approve  of 


96  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

them.     They  were  bathed  in  an  atmosphere  of  dis- 
content— modern     discontent.       Now,     what     have 
people  to  be  discontented  about  ?     Nothing  ;  nothing 
at  all,  if  they  live  rightly.     (He  stops,  having  nothing 
further   to   say.     For   the  same  reason,  he   proceeds.) 
Nevertheless,  I  thank  Miss  Potting,  M.A.,  very  much 
for  her  most  interesting  paper.     There  is  one  question 
I  should  like  to  ask  her  :   is  this  Mr  Masefield  read  by 
the  right  people  ? 
Miss    Vera    Potting,    M.A.    Oh    no !     Oh    dear,    no ! 
Most  certainly  not !     Still,  it  is  incontestable  that  he 
is  read. 
Mr  S.  Wanley.  Thank  you   so  much.     I  felt  that   he 

could  not  be  read  by  the  right  people. 
Miss  Graceley  (rather  nervously).  I  feel  that  I  can  say  I 
know  my  Lord  Lytton,  my  Edna  Lyall,  my  Charlotte 
M.  Yonge  and  my  Tennyson.  I  have  always  re- 
mained content  with  them,  and  after  what  Miss  Vera 
Potting,  M.A.,  has  said  about  Mr  Masefield  in  her 
most  interesting  paper,  I  shall  remain  content  with 
them. 
Mr  S.  Wanley.  Hear,  hear.     I   always   seem   to   agree 

with  you,  Miss  Graceley. 
Mrs  Arnold  (archly).  What  is  the  saying  ? — great  minds 

always  jump  alike  ? 
Rev.  Mather-Johnstone  (sotto  voce).  Jump  ? 
Mr  Porteous  (with  most  distinguished  amiability).  I  really 
think  that  this  most  interesting  paper  that  Miss  Vera 
Potting,  M.A.,  has  read  to  us  should  be  published.     It 
is  so — well,  so  improving,  so  elevating,  so — — 
Miss  Vera  Potting,  M.A.  (who  has  already  fruitlessly  sent 
tJie  essay  to  every  magazine  in  the  country).  Oh,  Mr 
Porteous  !     How  can  you  ?     Really,  I  couldn't  think 
of  such  a  thing. 
Rev.  Mather- Johnstone,  M.A.  (who,  being  not  altogether 
free  from  jealousy,  thinks  this  is  really  going  a  bit  too 


INTELLECTUAL  FREAKS  97 

far).     But  perhaps  we  do  not  all  quite  approve  of 

women   writers — I   mean   ladies   who  write   for   the 

wide,  rough  public. 
Mrs  Arnold.     True  !     True  !  .  .  .  But  then,  what  about 

Felicia  Hemans  ? 
Rev.  Mather- Johnstone,  M.A.     Mrs  Hemans  was  Mrs 

Hemans.     Miss  Vera  Potting,  M.A.,  is,  and  I  hope 

will  always  remain,  Miss  Vera  Potting,  M.A. 
Mr  Porteous.    Oh,  don't  say  that !     What  I  mean  is 

(This  sort  of  thing  goes  on  for  an  hour  when,  very 
secretly  and  as  though  she  were  on  some  nefarious 
errand,  Mrs  Arnold  disappears  from  the  room.  She 
presently  reappears  with  a  maid,  zvho  carries  a  tray 
of  coffee  and  sandwiches.  The  dreadfu  I  Mr  Masefield 
is  then  forgotten.] 

You  think  the  above  sketch  is  exaggerated  ?  Ah  !  well, 
perhaps  you  have  never  lived  in  Highgate,  or  in  the 
suburbs  of  Manchester,  Birmingham,  Sheffield  or  Leeds. 
I  could  set  down  some  appalling  conversations  that  I  have 
heard  in  suburban  "  literary  "  circles.  There  is  a  place 
called  Eccles,  where,  one  evening 

In  London  Bohemia  there  are  many  freakish  people, 
but,  for  the  most  part,  they  are  altogether  charming  and 
refreshing.  Quite  a  number  of  them  have  what  I  am 
told  is,  in  the  Police  Courts,  termed  "  no  visible  means  of 
subsistence,"  but  they  appear  to  "  carry  on  "  with  imper- 
turbable good  humour  and  borrow  money  cheerfully  and 
as  frequently  as  their  circle  of  acquaintances  (which  is 
usually  very  large)  will  permit. 

Frequenters  of  the  Cafe  Royal  in  pre-war  days  will 
recognise  the  following  types  : — 

Picture  to  yourself  a  Polish  Jew,  young,  yellow-skinned, 
black-haired  ;  he  has  luminous  eyes,  sensuous  lips  and 
damp  hands,  and  he  dresses  well,  but  in  an  extravagant 


98  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

style.  He  is  a  megalomaniac,  and  he  has  all  the  megalo- 
maniac's consuming  anxiety  to  discover  precisely  in  what 
way  other  people  react  to  his  personality.  One  night 
my  bitterest  enemy  brought  him  to  the  table  at  which 
I  was  sitting,  introduced  us  to  each  other,  and  walked 
away. 

"  I  am  told  you  are  a  journalist,"  my  new  acquaintance 
began.  "  I  myself  write  poems.  I  have  a  theory  about 
poetry,  and  my  theory  is  this :  All  poetry  should  be 
subjective." 

"  Why  ?  " 

"  Never  mind  why.  I  am  telling  you  about  my  theory. 
All  poetry  should  be  subjective  ;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  all 
the  best  poetry  is.  To  myself  I  am  the  most  interesting 
phenomenon  in  the  world.  To  yourself,  you  are.  Is  it 
not  so  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;   you  have  guessed  right  first  time." 

"  Well,  I  have  in  this  dispatch  case  eight  hundred  and 
seventy-three  poems  about  myself,  telling  the  world 
almost  all  there  is  to  know  about  the  most  interesting 
phenomenon  it  contains." 

He  took  from  his  case  a  great  pile  of  MS.  and  turned  the 
leaves  over  in  his  hands. 

"  Here,"  said  he,  "  is  a  blank- verse  poem  entitled  How 
1  felt  at  8.45  a.m.  on  June  8,  1909,  having  partaken  of 
Breakfast.     Would  you  like  to  read  it  ?  " 

I  assured  him  I  should,  though  I  fully  expected  it 
would  contain  unmistakable  signs  of  mental  disturbance. 
But  it  did  not.  It  was  quite  respectably  written  verse, 
much  better  than  at  least  half  of  Wordsworth's  ;  it  was 
logical,  it  had  ideas,  it  showed  some  introspective  power, 
and  it  revealed  a  mind  above  the  ordinary. 

I  told  him  all  this. 

"  Then  you  don't  think  I'm  a  genius  ?  Some  people 
do." 

"  You  see,  I'm  not  a  very  good  judge  of  men — par- 


INTELLECTUAL  FREAKS  99 

ticularly  men  of  genius.     You  may  be  a  genius  ;    on  the 
other  hand,  you  may  not." 

"  But  what  exactly  do  you  think  of  me  ?  " 

"  I  have  already  told  you." 

"  Yes,  but  not  with  sufficient  particularity.  Now,  put 
away  from  you  all  feeling  of  nervousness  and  try  to 
imagine  that  I  have  just  left  you  and  that  a  friend  of  yours 
lias  come  in  and  taken  my  place.  You  are  alone  together. 
You  would,  of  course,  immediately  tell  him  that  you  had 
met  me.  You  would  say  :  '  He  is  a  very  strange  man, 
eccentric  .  .  .'  and  so  on.  You  would  describe  my  ap- 
pearance, my  personality,  my  verses.  You,  being  a  writer, 
would  analyse  me  to  shreds.  Now,  that  is  what  I  want 
you  to  do  now.  I  want  you  to  say  all  the  bad  things  with 
the  good.     And  I  shall  listen,  greedily." 

''  But,  really  !  "  I  protested.  ''  Really,  I  can't  do  what 
you  ask." 

Disappointed  and  vexed,  he  sat  biting  his  underlip. 

"  All  right,"  he  said  at  length,  lt  we'll  strike  a  bargain. 
After  you  have  analysed  me  I,  in  return,  will  analyse 
you." 

"  You  have  quite  the  most  unhealthy  mind  with  which 
I  have  ever  come  in  contact." 

'  You  really  believe  that  ?  "  he  asked,  delighted.  "  Do 
go  on." 

"  Oh,  but  I'm  sorry  I  began.  This  kind  of  thing  is 
dangerous." 

"  Yes,  I  know.  But  I  like  danger — mental  danger 
especially." 

"  But  drink  would  be  better  for  you.  Even  drugs. 
You  are  asking  me  to  help  to  throw  you  off  your  mental 
balance." 

"  I  know     I  know.     But  you  won't  refuse  ?  " 

"  To  show  you  that  I  will  I  am  leaving  you  now  in  this 
cafe.     I  am  going.     Good-night." 

But  he  met  me  many  times  after  that,  and  always 


100  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

pursued  me  with  ardour.  In  the  end  he  gained  his  desire 
and,  having  done  so,  had  no  further  use  for  me. 

I  call  him  The  Man  Who  Collects  Opinions  of  Himself. 
He  is  still  in  London.     And  he  is  not  yet  insane. 

Then  there  was  the  lady — since,  alas  !  dead — who  used 
always  to  appear  in  public  in  a  kind  of  purple  shroud,  her 
face  and  fingers  chalked.  She  rather  stupidly  called  her- 
self Cheerio  Death,  and  was  one  of  the  jolliest  girls  I  have 
ever  met.  She  longed  and  ached  for  notoriety  and  for 
new  sensations  :  she  feasted  on  them  and  they  nourished 
and  fattened  her.  Only  very  brave  or  reckless  men  dared 
be  seen  with  her  in  public,  for,  though  her  behaviour  was 
scrupulously  correct,  her  appearance  created  either  veiled 
ridicule  or  consternation  wherever  she  went.  Yet  she 
never  lacked  companions. 

"  Hullo,  Gerald  !  "  she  used  to  say  to  me  ;  "sit  down 
near  me.  You  are  so  nice  and  chubby.  I  like  to  have  you 
near  me.     How  am  I  looking  ?  " 

"More  beautiful  than  ever." 

"  Oh,  you  are  sweet.  Isn't  he  sweet,  Frank  ?  '  she 
would  say  to  one  of  her  companions.  '  Order  him  some 
champagne.     I'm  thirsty." 

And,  really,  Cheerio  Death  was  very  beautiful  in  a 
ghastly  and  terrible  way.  By  degrees,  all  the  reputable 
restaurants  were  closed  to  her,  and  in  the  late  autumn  of 
1913  she  disappeared,  to  die  of  consumption  in  Soho. 
Poor  girl !  Perhaps  in  Paris,  where  they  love  the  outre 
and  the  shocking,  she  would  have  secured  the  full,  hectic 
success  that  in  London  was  denied  her. 

Are  freaks  always  conscious  of  their  freakislmess  ?  I 
do  not  think  they  are.  Not  even  the  man  who  wilfully 
cultivates  his  oddities  until  they  have  become  swollen 
excrescences  hanging  bulbous-like  on  his  personality  is 
aware  how  vastly  different,  how  unreasonably  different 
he  is  from  his  fellows.    He  is  more  than  reconciled  to 


INTELLECTUAL  FREAKS  101 

himself;  he  loves  himself ;  he  is  what  other  people  would 
be  if  only  they  could.  Vanity  continually  lulls  and  soothes 
and  rots  him.  The  nature  that  craves  to  be  noticed  will 
go  to  almost  any  lengths  to  secure  that  notice. 

It  has  always  appeared  curious  to  me  that  the  ambition 
to  become  famous  should  very  generally  be  regarded  as  a 
worthy  passion  in  a  man  of  genius.  It  is  but  natural  that 
a  man  of  genius  should  desire  his  work  to  reach  as  many 
people  as  possible,  but  whether  or  not  he  should  be  known 
as  the  author  of  that  work  seems  to  me  a  matter  of  no 
importance  whatever.  But  to  the  man  himself  it  is  all- 
important.  He  has  an  instinctive  feeling  that  if,  in  the 
public  eye,  he  is  separated  from  his  work,  savour  will  go 
from  what  he  has  created.  He  and  his  work  must  be 
closely  identified. 

This  desire  to  be  widely  known,  to  be  talked  about 
everywhere,  is  in  the  man  of  genius  accepted  as  natural, 
but  it  is  this  very  desire  that,  in  many  cases,  makes  a 
freak  of  the  ordinary  man.     Obscurity  to  him  is  death. 


CHAPTER  IX 
FLEET  STREET 

I  DON'T  know  why,  but  for  many  years  there  has 
been  (and  I  am  told  there  still  is)  a  kind  of  silent  con- 
spiracy to  keep  out  of  Fleet  Street  as  many  aspirants 
to  journalism  as  possible.  They  are  discouraged  by 
extravagant  stories  of  the  fierce  competition  that  reigns 
there,  by  tragic  yarns  of  men  of  great  gifts  who  walk 
about  The  Street  in  rags.  I  myself  was  discouraged  in  this 
way  and  I  found  myself,  on  the  verge  of  middle  age,  still 
hesitating  in  Manchester.  It  is  true,  I  did  not  enter 
journalism  until  I  was  in  my  thirties,  and  I  did  not  know 
the  ropes.  I  did  not  know  London  either.  Also,  I  was 
married  and  had  children  to  educate  and  could  not  afford 
to  take  risks  and  make  of  life  the  grand  adventure  I  have, 
in  my  heart,  always  known  it  to  be. 

So  I  hung  on  in  Manchester,  writing  musical  criticism 
for  The  Manchester  Courier  and  contributing  occasional 
articles  and  verses  to  The  Academy,  The  Contemporary 
Review,  The  Cornhill,  The  English  Review,  The  Musical 
Times,  and  many  other  magazines,  and  there  is  scarcely  a 
London  daily  of  repute  for  which  at  one  time  or  another  I 
did  not  write.  But  still  I  could  find  no  opening  in  Fleet 
Street.  The  truth  is,  there  is  no  regular  means  of  finding 
openings  in  Fleet  Strreet.  If  an  editor  is  in  want  of  a 
dramatic  critic,  a  musical  critic,  a  leader  writer,  or  a  de- 
scriptive reporter,  he  never  advertises  for  one.  He  always 
knows  someone  who  knows  somebody  else  who  is  just  the 
man  for  the  job. 

So  one  day  I  said  to  myself :  "  I  will  go  to  London  at  all 

102 


FLEET  STREET  103 

costs.  I  will  take  a  room  in  Bloomsbury  and  risk  it." 
By  a  happy  accident  I  received,  a  few  days  later,  a  note 
from  Rutland  Boughton,  the  well-known  composer,  telling 
me  that  he  was  relinquishing  his  post  as  musical  critic  of 
The  Daily  Citizen,  that  ill-fated  paper  so  courageously 
edited  by  Frank  Dilnot.  Boughton  suggested  I  should 
apply  for  the  vacancy.  I  did  apply.  I  wrote  to  Dilnot 
and  received  no  answer.  I  chafed  a  fortnight  and  then 
telegraphed,  prepaying  a  reply.  '  No  vacancy  at 
present  "  was  the  message  I  received.  So  I  took  the  next 
train  to  London  and  bearded  Dilnot  in  his  den.  "  Yes, 
I'll  tfcke  you,"  he  said,  "  if  you'll  come  for  two  pounds  a 
week.  But,  if  you're  the  real  stuff,  you'll  receive  much 
more. '  As  I  knew  that  I  was,  indeed,  the  real  stuff,  "  I'll 
come,''  said  I.     "  When  can  I  start  ?  " 

I  went  back  to  Manchester  and  saw  W.  A.  Ackland,  the 
managing  editor  of  The  Manchester  Courier  and  the  kindest 
or' men,  expecting  to  receive  from  him  a  cold  douche.  But 
no  !  To  my  amazement,  he  encouraged  me  most  heartily, 
and  kept  me  on  his  staff,  bidding  me  write  a  weekly  article 
for  him  from  London.  This  I  did  till  the  outbreak  of  the 
war,  writing  a  lot  of  material  also  for  his  London  letter. 

During  my  first  year  in  London  I  made  six  hundred 
and  forty  pounds.  And  I  spent  it.  I  spent  it  in  eager 
examination  of.  and  participation  in,  the  many  activities 
that  the  life  of  a  great  metropolis  affords.  Very  soon — 
within  six  months— I  found  myself  in  the  happy  position 
of  being  able  to  refuse  work  that  was  offered  me,  for  I  did 
not  wish  to  work  all  my  waking  hours.  I  wanted  to  play. 
I  did  play.  I  made  many  friendships.  I  talked  a  great 
deal,  played  the  piano  two  or  three  hours  a  day,  caroused, 
ragged  in  Chelsea,  and  lived  every  hour  of  my  life. 

It  may  be  thought  that  six  hundred  and  forty  pounds 
per  annum  is  no  great  sum.  Nor  is  it.  But  does  a  doctor, 
a  barrister,  a  solicitor,  or  any  other  professional  man  earn 
so  much,  without  capital  or  influence,  during  his  first  year 


104  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

in  London  ?  Or  in  his  second  ?  Or  third  ?  Money- 
making  in  Fleet  Street  up  to  about  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  a  year  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  for  a 
man  who  has  any  talent  at  all  for  writing,  especially  if  that 
talent  be  combined  with  versatility.  The  journalist  is 
rarely  intellectual ;  as  a  rule,  he  is  merely  ready  and  glib. 
I  am  ready  and  glib  myself. 

So  I  am  not  among  those  who  feel  inclined  to  discourage 
him  who  hankers  after  Fleet  Street.  No  matter  if  you 
live  in  the  waste  regions  of  Sutherland,  if  you  have  proved 
yourself  by  inducing  a  number  of  editors  of  repute  to  take 
your  stuff,  go  in  and  win  !     Really,  it  is  very  easy. 

•  ••••••* 

The  men  of  Fleet  Street  are  the  best  fellows  in  the  world. 
Roughly,  they  may  be  divided  into  two  classes  :  those 
who  "  go  steady,"  with  their  eye  always  on  the  main 
chance,  with  every  faculty  strained  to  enable  them  to 
"  get  on  "  in  the  world  ;  and  those  happy-go-lucky  people 
who  make  money  easily  and  spend  it  recklessly,  so  excite:! 
by  life  that  they  cannot  pause  to  contemplate  life,  so 
happy  in  their  labour  and  in  their  play  that  they  cannct 
conceive  a  day  may  come  when  work  will  be  irksome  ani 
playing  a  half- forgotten  dream.  There  are,  of  course, 
other  divisions  into  which  journalists  may  be  separated. 
There  is,  for  example,  the  devoted  band  of  brilliant  young 
men  who  work  for  Orage  in  The  New  Age — a  paper  tha: 
cannot,  I  am  sure,  pay  high  rates.  (What  those  rates  are 
I  do  not  know,  for  I  could  never  induce  Orage  to  print  a 
single  thing  I  wrote  for  him.)  Then  there  are  the  hangers- 
on  of  journalism  :  people  who  review  books  in  the  time 
spared  from  their  labours  as  university  professors, 
struggling  barristers,  parish  priests  and  so  on.  Many  of 
these  people,  led  by  vanity  or  some  other  concealed 
motive,  offer  to  work  without  payment. 

The  men  who  "  go  steady  "  are  the  editors,  the  leader- 
writers,  the  news  editors,  the  literary  editors,  etc.     For 


FLEET  STREET  105 

the  most  part  they  are  men  who  have  to  keep  late  hours 
and  clear  heads,  for  important  news  may  reach  the  office 
at  midnight  and  instant  decisions  regarding  the  policy 
that  the  paper  has  to  assume  in  regard  to  that  news  have 
to  be  made.  A  great  political  speech  may  be  made  in 
Edinburgh  ;  a  startling  murder  trial  may  close  in  Liver- 
pool ;  a  famous  man  may  die  in  Paris ;  a  strike  may 
break  out  in  the  Potteries  :  in  short,  anything  may 
happen.  What  attitude  is  the  paper  going  to  take  up  ? 
What  precise  shade  of  opinion  is  going  to  be  expressed 
about  that  political  speech  ?  What  is  to  be  said  about 
the  degree  of  justice  that  the  workers  in  the  Potteries  can 
claim  for  their  action  ?  These  matters  have  to  be  decided 
instantly,  for  they  have  to  be  written  about  instantly,  and 
perhaps  you  who  read  the  leading  article  next  morning 
rarely  stop  to  consider  the  conditions — the  incredibly 
difficult  conditions — under  which  it  has  been  written. 
For  this  kind  of  work  real,  genuine  ability  is  required  :  a 
very  wide  and  accurate  knowledge  of  affairs,  rapidity  of 
thought,  a  fluent  and  eloquent  pen  and  a  mind  so  sensitive 
that  it  can,  without  effort,  reflect  to  a  nicety  the  precise 
policy  of  the  paper  upon  whose  work  it  is  engaged. 

There  is  a  story,  and  I  think  the  story  is  true,  of  a  new 
and  inexperienced  reporter  who  was  given  a  trial  on  the 
staff  of  a  very  famous  "  halfpenny  "  paper.  He  was  not 
a  success,  for  he  bungled  everything  that  was  given  him 
to  do,  and  he  had  not  an  idea  in  his  head  concerning  the 
invention  and  manufacture  of  stunts.  So  he  was  tried  as 
a  book- reviewer,  and  again  failed  miserably.  They  made 
a  sub-editor  of  him,  and  once  more  he  was  slow  and  in- 
accurate. Said  the  news  editor  to  the  editor-in-chief :  "  I'm 
afraid  I  shall  have  to  get  rid  of  Jones  ;  he's  tried  almost 
everything  and  failed."  "  Oh  !  has  he  ?  "  returned  the 
editor-in-chief.     "  Well,  put  him  on  to  writing  leaders." 

But  even  the  halfpenny  Press  has,  in  recent  years,  come 
to  regard  its  leader  columns  as  one  of  the  most  important 


106  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

parts  of  its  papers.  Of  this  kind  of  work  I  have  had  little 
experience.  A  position  as  writer  of  "  leaderettes  "  was 
offered  me  on  The  Globe,  but  I  was  not  a  success,  for  I  was 
at  the  same  time  writing  a  great  deal  of  stuff  for  The 
Daily  Citizen,  and,  as  both  papers  were  equally  violent 
in  antagonistic  political  and  social  fields,  I  soon  found 
myself  writing  solidly  and  regularly  against  my  own  con- 
victions. It  is  true  that  a  journalist,  like  a  barrister,  is 
generally  but  a  hireling  paid  to  express  certain  views, 
but  there  are  few  men  so  intellectually  backboneless  and 
ethically  flabby  that  they  can,  day  after  day,  say  both 
yes  and  no  to  the  various  problems  that  face  them. 

•  ••••  ••• 

I  suppose  there  are  few  professions  in  which  one  learns 
more  about  the  seamy  side  of  human  nature  than  one  does 
in  journalism.  The  one  appalling  vice  of  eminent  men 
is  vanity.  Musicians,  actors,  authors,  politicians — even 
judges  and  preachers — appear  to  be  so  constituted  that 
they  cannot  live  and  be  happy  without  publicity.  From 
what  source,  do  you  think,  originate  those  chatty  little 
paragraphs  concerning  famous  men  and  women  that  you 
find  in  every  evening  newspaper  and  in  many  weeklies  ? 
They  originate  from  the  fountain-head.  If  the  novelist 
does  not  himself  send  the  paragraph  to  the  paper,  his 
publisher  does  ;  if  the  actor  has  not  written  that  "  snappy  " 
par.,  he  has  given  his  manager  the  material  for  it.  At 
one  time  I  wrote  a  weekly  column  of  theatrical  gossip 
for  a  well-known  daily,  and  I  can,  without  exaggeration, 
say  that  most  of  our  famous  actors  and  actresses  did  my 
work  for  me.  I  used  scissors  and  paste,  corrected  their 
grammatical  errors  (and  mistakes  in  spelling  !),  coloured 
the  whole  with  my  personality — and  there  the  column  was 
ready  for  the  printer  !  Sometimes  I  would  receive  letters 
from  notorious  mimes  expostulating  with  me  because  I 
had  not  mentioned  their  names  for  a  month  or  two. 
Others  wrote  and  thanked  me  for  praising  them.     One 


FLEET  STREET  107 

lady  whom  I  have  never  seen,  either  on  the  stage  or  off, 
sent  me  a  silver  pencil-case,  with  a  letter  containing  the 
material  for  a  very  personal  sketch.  I  put  the  pencil 
in  my  pocket  and  the  sketch  in  the  newspaper.  Quite 
recently  I  was  shown  an  article  signed  by  a  famous  lady, 
containing  a  bogus  account  of  how  she  had  received  a 
strange  proposal  of  marriage.  The  article  had  been  in- 
vented and  written  by  an  acquaintance  of  mine,  but  the 
signature  was  the  lady's. 

But  more  egregious  than  the  vanity  of  actors  is  the 
vanity  of  fashionable  preachers.  To  them  notoriety  is 
the  very  breath  of  their  nostrils.  They  have  no  "  agents," 
so  they  are  compelled  to  advertise  themselves  without 
camouflage.  And  they  do  it  shamelessly.  I  will  not 
mention  names,  but  at  least  half  the  fashionable  preachers 
in  London,  no  matter  what  their  denomination,  are  guiltv 
of  constant  and  most  resourceful  self-advertisement.  A 
little,  a  very  little,  Jesuitical  reasoning  is  sufficient  to  satisfy 
their  consciences  that  this  is  done,  not  out  of  vanity,  but 
from  a  desire  to  bring  a  still  larger  congregation  to 
the  fount  of  wisdom  itself.  .  .  .  They  are  the  fount  of 
wisdom. 

On  only  two  occasions  have  I  approached  an  author 
with  a  request  for  an  interview  and  been  refused.  But  I 
have  taken  care  never  to  approach  such  men  as  Thomas 
Hardy,  John  Galsworthy  and  a  few  others  who  regard 
their  profession  with  too  much  respect  to  lend  themselves 
to  a  practice  which,  at  its  best,  is  undignified,  and  which, 
at  its  worst,  is  a  method  of  mean  self-glorification. 

Of  ''  ghosting  '  I  have  done  a  little  and  seen  much. 
I  know  well  a  very  prosperous  musical  composer  of  talent 
who  has  paid  me  to  write  many  articles  that  he  has  signed 
with  his  own  name.  You  call  me  an  accomplice  ?  But 
then  it  was  nothing  to  me  what  he  did  with  my  articles 
when  I  had  written  them.     Believe  me,  the  practice  is 


108  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

very  common.     The  man  who  signs  the  articles  furnishes 
the  ideas  :  the  ghost  merely  expresses  them. 

The  same  musical  composer  was  commissioned  a  few 
years  ago  to  write  an  orchestral  work  for  an  important 
musical  festival.  We  will  call  him  Birket.  Either  Birket 
was  too  busy  to  write  the  work  or  he  felt  he  had  not  the 
ability  to  do  it ;  whatever  the  reason,  he  went  to  a  friend 
of  mine — a  man  of  far  superior  gifts  to  his  more  famous 
colleague — and  offered  him  a  certain  sum  to  do  the  work 
for  him.  My  friend — Foster  will  do  for  his  name — con- 
sented, and  the  work  was  duly  performed  at  the  festival, 
conducted  by  Birket,  and  I  attended  in  my  capacity  as 
musical  critic. 

How  eminent  men  who  are  not  writers  do  itch  to  see 
themselves  in  print  !  It  is  not  enough  that  their  speeches 
are  reported,  their  paintings  and  musical  compositions 
criticised,  their  sentences  recorded  by  every  daily  news- 
paper, their  acting,  singing  and  what  not  lauded  to  the 
skies  :  they  must  themselves  write  :  or,  if  they  cannot 
write,  it  must  appear  to  the  public  that  they  have  written. 
Why  ?  Just  vanity.  That  word  "  vanity  "  will  explain 
nine-tenths  of  the  seemingly  inexplicable  things  in  the 
conduct  of  most  of  our  public  men.  A  man  accepts  a 
knighthood  because,  as  a  rule,  he  is  vain  ;  he  refuses  it 
for  the  same  reason  ;  he  advertises  that  he  has  refused 
it  because  he  is  vain  ;  and,  because  he  is  vain,  he  refuses 
to  advertise  that  he  has  refused  it. 

•  ••••••• 

A  great  deal  has  been  written  about  the  romance  of 
Fleet  Street.  But  romance  is  in  a  man's  mind  and  heart, 
and  it  is  true  that  many  romantically  minded  men  go  to 
Fleet  Street.  Fleet  Street  gives  us  a  sense  of  importance, 
a  sense  of  too  much  importance.  We  like  to  feel  that  we 
are  powerful,  but  only  a  mere  handful  of  men  in  The  Street 
have  power  that  is  worth  while.  What  we  of  the  rank  and 
file  write  is  soon  forgotten,  for  newspaper  readers  are,  for 


FLEET  STREET  109 

the  most  part,  people  who  devour  print  greedily,  neither 
masticating  nor  assimilating  the  things  they  devour. 
Newspapers  confuse  the  mind  and  bring  it  to  a  state  of 
drugged  apathy.  Did  you  ever  meet  a  really  voracious 
reader  of  newspapers  who  possessed  the  gift  of  sifting  and 
weighing  evidence,  or  one  who  had  an  accurate  memory, 
or  one  who  could  think  clearly  and  logically,  or  one  who 
was  not  bewildered  and  befogged  by  mere  words  ? 

But  even  if  we  men  in  Fleet  Street  have  no  real  power, 
we  have  what  is  much  the  same  thing  :  we  have  the 
illusion  of  power.  We  come  into  close  contact  with  people 
much  more  important  than  ourselves,  and  some  of  these 
people  fawn  on  us,  for  we  are  the  necessary  intermediaries 
between  themselves  and  the  public. 

But  romance  ?  Why  is  Fleet  Street  romantic  ?  Well, 
as  I  have  already  said,  it  is  because  so  many  journalists 
themselves  are  romantic.  .  .  .  But  I  wonder  if  that  really 
is  the  reason,  and'  as  I  wonder  I  begin  to  think  that  though 
it  is  true  one  meets  adventurous,  talented  and  original 
people  by  the  score  in  newspaper  offices,  yet,  after  all, 
it  is  not  they  who  make  journalism  seem  full  of  savour, 
of  rich  delight,  of  unexpectedness  and  excitement,  of  high 
romance.  No  ;  it  is  writing  itself  that  is  romantic  :  mere 
words  and  the  colour  and  music  of  words  ;  the  smell  of 
printers'  ink  ;  the  wet  feel  of  a  paper  fresh  from  the  press  ; 
the  sounds  of  telephone  bells  and  of  machinery  ;  the  joy 
of  expressing  oneself ;  the  lovely,  great  joy  of  signing  one's 
name  to  an  article  and  knowing  that  in  twenty-four  hours 
it  will  have  been  read  or  glanced  at  by  perhaps  half-a- 
million  people.  .  .  .  But  it  seems  to  me  as  I  write  that  I 
am  utterly  failing  to  communicate  to  you  who  read  the 
romantic  nature  of  journalism.  To  you  it  is,  perhaps, 
merely  a  slipshod  profession,  a  profession  in  which  there 
is  something  sordid  and  vulgar  and  as  unromantic  as 
Monday  morning.  To  me  a  man  who  writes  with  dis- 
tinction is  the  most  interesting  creature  in  the  world  :    I 


110  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

cannot  know  too  much  about  him  ;  I  can  never  tire 
of  his  talk.  Actors  bore  me.  So  do  politicians,  lawyers, 
men  of  science,  those  who  are  professionally  religious, 
doctors,  musicians.  But  writers  and  financiers — especi- 
ally Jewish  financiers — are  to  me  full  of  subtlety  ;  their 
souls  are  elusive,  and  their  minds  are  cunning  past  all 
reckoning.  It  is  frequently  said  that  the  art  of  writing 
is  possessed  by  most  people.  The  art  of  writing  correctly 
may  be,  but  the  "  correct  "  writer  is  frequently  not  a 
writer  at  all,  for  he  cannot  compel  people  to  read  him.  A 
writer  without  readers  is  not  a  writer ;  he  is  simply  a  man 
who  murmurs  to  himself  very  laboriously.  But  the  writer 
who  can  claim  thousands  of  readers — I  mean  even  such 
writers  as  Mr  Charles  Garvice  and  the  lady  who  invented 
The  Rosary — are  in  essentials  more  highly  endowed  with 
the  true  writer's  gifts  than  many  mandarins  who  live 
cloistered  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  And  I  say  this  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  I  have  never  been  able  to  read  more 
than  ten  consecutive  pages  of  any  book  of  Mr  Garvice's 
that  I  have  picked  up,  and  that  The  Rosary  seems  to  me 
a  story  of  such  amazing  flapdoodleism  that 

•  •••••  •• 

Arnold  Bennett  says  somewhere  that  living  in  the 
theatrical  world  is  like  living  a  story  out  of  The  Arabian 
Nights.  To  me  Fleet  Street  is  more  amazing  than  the 
bazaars  of  Cairo,  more  mysterious  than  the  herma- 
phroditic Sphinx.  And  perhaps  one  of  the  most  amazing 
things  about  Fleet  Street  is  the  easy  way  in  which  many 
men  earn  money. 

Some  years  ago  I  was  on  the  staff  of  a  paper  where  I 
had  for  a  colleague  a  dark  blue-eyed  young  man  who 
was  our  crime  specialist.  He  had  just  come  from  the 
provinces,  and  had  not  even  a  rudimentary  notion  of  how 
to  write.  He  knew  he  couldn't  write  ;  he  boasted  of  it. 
And  he  cared  nothing  for  newspapers  or  books  or  anything 
even  remotely  connected  with  literature.     But  he  had  an 


FLEET  STREET  111 

amazing  talent  for  sniffing  out  crime.  I  remember  a 
great  jewel  robbery  which  he  got  wind  of  half-a-day  before 
anyone  else,  and,  in  a  way  known  only  to  himself,  he 
obtained  full  particulars  of  the  affair,  writing  a  half- 
column  "  story  "  before  any  other  paper  in  the  kingdom 
even  knew  there  was  a  story  to  write.  He  entertained  me 
vastly,  and  I  used  to  go  with  him  sometimes  at  night 
when  he  called  at  Scotland  Yard  for  news.  Scotland  Yard 
never  gives  away  news  unless  it  is  in  its  own  interest  to  do 
so.  But  I  am  very  much  inclined  to  believe  that  it  was 
somewhere  in  Scotland  Yard  that  he  obtained  his  most 
valuable  information.  We  would  walk  down  wide 
corridors  there  together,  sit  ten  minutes  in  a  waiting- 
room,  interview  an  official  who  invariably  said  :  "  Nothing 
doing  to-night,"  and  come  away.  But  that  was  quite 
enough  for  my  friend.  '  I  must  go  to  Poplar  straight 
away,"  he  would  say,  as  we  came  away  ;  or  perhaps  :  "I 
can  just  catch  the  last  train  to  Guildford  "  ;  or  "  There  is 
nothing  at  all  in  the  rumour  of  that  murder  in  Battersea." 
I  used  to  look  at  him  in  amazement  and  exclaim  :  "But 
how  do  you  know  ?  '  ""  Ah  !  "  he  would  reply  ;  "  they 
say  that  walls  have  ears.  But  much  more  frequently 
they  have  tongues." 

This  man  was  paid  three  pounds  a  week  by  our  editor. 
Three  times  out  of  four  he  was  ahead  of  every  other  paper 
in  his  news,  and  I  was  not  in  the  least  surprised  when  one 
day,  after  he  had  been  in  London  only  two  months,  he 
came  to  me  and  said  :  '  Next  week  I  am  leaving  you.  I 
am  going  to  The  Morning  Trumpet ;  they're  giving  me 
five  hundred  pounds  a  year."  Five  months  later  he  was 
getting  a  thousand  pounds  a  year  from  a  paper  that  never 
hesitates  to  pay  handsomely  for  "  stunts." 

I  caught  fire  from  my  friend's  enthusiasm,  and  late  one 
night,  just  when  I  had  finished  a  long  notice  of  a  new  play, 
I  overheard  the  night  editor  regretting  to  one  of  the  sub- 
editors that  news  of  a  particularly  horrible  murder  in 


112  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

Stepney  had  just  reached  the  office  when  all  the  reporters 
were  out  on  duty.  "  Let  me  go  !  "  I  urged.  '  But  you 
are  in  evening  dress,"  he  objected.  '  Never  mind  ;  send 
me  off."  And  ten  minutes  later  I  was  being  rushed  in  a 
taxi-cab  at  full  speed  to  Stepney.  I  found  the  scene  of 
the  murder — a  mean  little  house  in  a  mean  little  street. 
Outside  the  house  was  a  crowd  of  eager  loafers,  a  score 
of  reporters,  and  as  many  policemen,  who,  refusing  to  be 
bribed,  kept  us  all  in  the  street  without  news.  However, 
such  was  my  enthusiasm  that  I  alone  of  all  the  reporters 
got  into  the  house  and  into  the  cellar  where  the  wretched 
woman  had  been  butchered  to  death  three  hours  earlier. 
I  drew  a  hasty  plan  of  the  underground  floor,  interviewed 
a  sister  of  the  murdered  woman,  obtained  full  particulars, 
and  then  jumped  into  the  taxi-cab  to  return  to  the  office. 
Within  an  hour  of  leaving  my  desk  I  was  back  again,  and 
in  another  twenty  minutes  I  had  ready  as  vivid  and 
thrilling  a  "  story  "  as  ever  I  hope  to  write.  Knowing  that 
the  paper  was  on  the  point  of  going  to  press,  I  did  not,  as 
I  ought  to  have  done,  hand  my  copy  to  one  of  the  sub- 
editors, but  took  it  straight  to  the  machines.  Whilst 
I  was  waiting  for  a  proof,  I  was  summoned  to  my  editor's 
room.  He  was  frowning,  and  he  looked  very  much 
perturbed. 

"  By  the  merest  chance,  Cumberland,"  he  said,  sternly, 
"  I  have  been  the  means  of  saving  the  paper  from  heavy 
penalties  for  contempt  of  court."  He  paused  and  bit  his 
lip.  "I  suppose  you  think  your  murder  story  a  most 
brilliant  piece  of  work." 

"  Well,  I  certainly  was  under  that  impression,  sir,"  I 
began,  "  but  it  would  seem " 

"  Seem !  "  he  thundered.  "  You've  got  the  facts,  it's 
true,  but  then  all  my  reporters  have  to  get  the  facts.  The 
gross  blunder  you've  made  is,  first  of  all,  in  saying  that  the 
suspected  man  has  spent  practically  all  his  life  in  prison — 
contempt  of  court  of  the  vilest  description.     Secondly, 


FLEET  STREET  113 

you've  said "       He  enumerated  no  fewer  than  five 

blunders  I  had  made.  "  But,  worst  of  all,"  he  concluded, 
"  you  took  it  upon  yourself  to  give  your  copy  direct  to  the 
printers  after  midnight,  thus  breaking  the  strictest  rule 
of  this  office." 

It  was  true.  In  my  exciting  enthusiasm  I  had  forgotten 
this  Persian  rule. 

'  Fortunately,  I  came  in  just  in  time  to  stop  your  stuff. 
You'd  better,  I  think,  confine  yourself  exclusively  to 
your  dramatic  criticism." 

Nevertheless,  he  offered  me,  two  days  later,  ten  pounds 
a  Aveek  to  give  up  my  dramatic  criticism  and  general 
articles  (for  which  I  was  at  that  time  getting  only  five 
pounds)  and  devote  myself  to  reporting — an  offer  which 
I  refused,  as  the  work  would  have  exhausted  all  my 
time. 

•  ••••••  • 

It  was  at  about  this  time  that  the  idea  occurred  to  me 
that  a  certain  monthly  magazine  for  which  I  had  been 
writing  regularly  might,  if  asked,  pay  me  at  a  higher  rate 
than  that  which,  till  then,  they  had  been  giving  me.  So  I 
dressed  myself  very  carefully  (clothes  do  help,  don't  they  ?) 
and  drove  up  to  the  office  in  a  smart  hansom. 

'  I  have  called  about  my  articles,"  I  began,  rather 
brusquely,  to  the  editor,  a  scholarly  man  who  knew  far 
more  about  Elizabethan  literature  than  he  did  about 
human  nature.  "  I  have  found  just  lately  that  I  am  so 
busy  that  I  have  resolved  to  give  up  some  of  my  work. 
Your  magazine  is  one  of  those  with  which  I  am  anxious 
to  retain  my  connection,  partly  because  my  relationship 
with  you  has  always  been  so  pleasant." 

And  I  stopped.     It   is  not  everyone  who  knows  the 
right  place  at  which  to  stop  in  conversations  of  this  kind. 
''  My  relationship  with  you  has  always  been  so  pleasant ' 
was,  most  indubitably,  the  right  place. 

He  tried   to  force  me  into  further  talk  by  remaining 

H 


114  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

silent  himself.  A  clock  ticked  :  a  clock  always  does 
tick  on  these  occasions.  He  coughed.  I  looked  steadily 
towards  the  window.  For  a  full  minute  there  must  have 
been  silence  :  to  me  it  seemed  an  hour  ;  to  him  I  have 
no  doubt  it  seemed  eternity. 

"  I  think,  Mr  Cumberland,  we  shall  be  able  to  come 
to  a  satisfactory  arrangement,"  he  said,  when  eternity 
had  passed.  "  What  do  you  say  to  such-and-such  an 
amount  ?  " 

And  he  staggered  me  by  mentioning  a  sum  exactly 
treble  the  amount  I  had  been  receiving  for  the  last  two 
years. 

As  I  walked  into  the  Strand,  I  felt  a  mean  and  dis- 
agreeable bargain-driver,  but  after  I  had  lunched  at 
Simpson's,  I  said  to  myself :  "  What  a  fool  you  were  not 
to  go  to  see  him  twelve  months  ago  !  " 

But  though  many  people  equally  as  obscure  as  myself 
earn  a  thousand  pounds  a  year  by  their  pens,  you  must 
not  imagine  that  all  the  men  who  are  famous  writers  do 
likewise.  By  no  means  always  does  it  happen  that  a  man 
combines  literary  genius  and  the  power  of  earning  money, 
and  there  are  many  men  rightly  honoured  in  our  own  day 
whose  earnings  do  not  involve  them  in  the  payment  of 
income  tax.  The  faculty  of  making  money,  no  matter 
whether  it  is  made  out  of  the  sale  of  pills  or  poems,  tripe 
or  tragedies,  is  innate.  No  man  by  taking  thought  can 
add  a  thousand  pounds  a  year  to  his  income,  for  money 
is  not  made  by  thought  but  by  intuition. 

I  know  a  man  in  Chelsea  who  earns  fifteen  hundred 
pounds  a  year  by  writing  what,  in  my  schoolboy  days, 
we  called  (and  perhaps  they  are  still  called)  "bloods." 
He  knocks  off  a  cool  five  thousand  words  a  day  every  day 
for  three  weeks,  and  then  takes  a  week's  holiday — boys' 
"  bloods,"  servant -girls'  novelettes,  children's  fairy  tales 
and  newspaper  serials.  He  is  a  cheerful,  energetic  man, 
whose  hobbies  are  bull-dogs  and  Shakespeare,  and  he  has 


FLEET   STREET  115 

five  different  pen-names.  For  the  matter  of  that,  I  use 
three  different  pseudonyms,  my  reason  for  doing  this  being 
that  the  editor  of  The  Spectator,  say,  might  not  accept  my 
work  if  he  knew  I  was  writing  at  the  same  time  for  The 
English  Review  (I  have  written  for  both  publications), 
and  I  am  doubtful  if  The  Morning  Post  would  have  printed 
a  single  word  of  mine  if  the  editor  had  been  aware  that  I 
was  having  a  thousand  words  a  day  printed  in  The  Daily 
Citizen.  Some  editors  like  what  they  call  "  versatility 
of  thought,"  others  (I  think  rightly)  distrust  it. 

But  I  can  very  well  believe  that  this  gossip  about  money 
appears  to  you  very  sordid.  Well,  so  it  is.  My  final 
paragraph  shall  not  be  permitted  to  mention,  or  even  hint 
at,  hard  cash. 

•  ••••••• 

Once  again  I  return  to  my  statement  that  Fleet  Street 
is  romantic  because  many  of  the  people  in  it  are  romantic. 
But  what  is  a  romantic  person  ?  Alas  !  I  cannot  define 
one.  Perhaps  a  romantic  person  is  he  whose  soul  is 
mysterious  and  elusive  and  whose  mind  is  perturbed  and 
exalted  by  a  poetic  vision  of  life.  He  must  care  little  for 
the  things  that  Mr  Samuel  Smiles  and  the  "  get  on  or 
get  out  "  school  value  so  much.  .  .  .  No.  That  will  not 
do  at  all,  for  a  great  many  men  and  women  who  have 
cared  a  great  deal  for  money  and  worldly  power  were 
romantic.  Nero,  for  example,  and  Cleopatra,  and  Shake- 
speare,  and  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  Lord  Verulam 

But  though  a  romantic  man  may  be  difficult  to  define, 
he  is  very  easy  to  recognise.  Ivan  Heald  was  incorrigibly 
romantic.  But  perhaps  the  most  romantically  minded 
man  I  met  in  Fleet  Street  was  the  journalist  who  went  with 
me  to  Athens  in  the  very  early  spring  of  1914.  He  had 
no  right  in  Fleet  Street,  for  he  was  essentially  a  man  who 
preferred  to  do  things  rather  than  write  about  them.  But 
half  the  men  in  London  journalism  have  drifted  there 
not  so  much  because  they  have  a  natural  aptitude  for  the 


116  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

work  but  because  they  are  born  adventurers,  and  the 
great  adventure  of  Fleet  Street  is  bound  to  cross  the  path 
of  most  roving  men  one  day  or  another. 

Years  ago  there  lived  in  London  a  man  who  wrote  books 
and  magazine  stories  under  the  name  of  Julian  Croskey. 
He  had  been  in  the  Civil  Service  in  Shanghai,  had  helped 
to  finance  and  organise  a  rebellion,  and  had  been  turned 
out  of  China,  whence  he  came  to  England  to  write.  In 
1901  I  began  a  correspondence  with  Croskey,  who,  in  the 
meantime,  had  gone  to  Canada  and  was  living  alone  on  a 
river  island.  Though  we  corresponded  for  years,  we  never 
met,  and  after  a  time  his  letters  began  to  show  signs  of 
megalomania.  But  there  was  such  genius  in  his  letters, 
such  brooding  energy,  such  hate  of  life,  and,  at  times,  such 
an  uncanny  suggestion  of  terrific  power,  that  I  treasured 
every  word  he  wrote  to  me,  and,  when  his  letters  ceased, 
something  vital  and  something  almost  necessary  to  me 
passed  out  of  my  life.  I  do  not  like  to  believe  that  he 
ceased  writing  to  me  because  I  no  longer  interested  him. 
I  hope  he  still  lives.  I  hope  he  will  read  this  book.  Some 
day  his  letters  must  be  published,  for  they  constitute  a 
problem  in  psychology  at  once  fascinating,  mysterious  and 
demonic.  And  this  man  whom  I  never  met  remains  to 
me  the  most  romantic  of  all  men  I  have  met  in  the  spirit. 


CHAPTER   X 
HALL  CAINE 

MY  acquaintance  with  Hall  Caine  began  in  a  semi- 
professional  way.  Whilst  still  a  schoolboy,  I 
was  commissioned  by  Tit-Bits  to  write  a  three- 
column  interview  with  him.  I  wrote  to  the  novelist  for 
an  interview.  Perhaps  the  rawness  of  my  letter  aroused 
the  suspicion  that  I  was  too  young  to  write  adequately 
about  him  even  in  a  paper  of  the  standing  of  Tit-Bits ; 
at  all  events  he  refused  the  interview,  but  very  kindly  said 
that,  if  I  was  contemplating  a  visit  to  the  Isle  of  Man,  he 
would  be  pleased  if  I  would  call  on  and  lunch  with  him  as 
an  unprofessional  visitor.  At  that  time,  being  young  and 
ardent,  I  was  a  young  and  ardent  admirer  of  his,  and  I 
believe  I  told  him  so  in  my  letter  that  requested  the 
interview. 

If  I  went  to  him  as  an  admirer  I  came  away  from  that 
first  visit  to  Greeba  Castle  a  worshipper.  In  those  days 
he  was  (but  he  still  is  !)  an  astounding  personality.  He 
came  into  the  room  quietly  and,  having  shaken  hands  and 
sat  down  by  my  side,  said  :  "  An  exquisite  day  for  your 
walk  from  St  John's."  So  impressively  was  this  spoken, 
and  there  was  such  a  fire  in  his  eyes  as  he  said  it,  such  a 
weight  of  meaning  in  his  manner,  that  I  felt  as  though 
something  secret  and  wonderful  had  been  revealed  to  me. 
I  wanted  to  say  :  "  How  true  !  '  What  I  did  say  was  : 
"  Yes ;  isn't  it  ?  "  He  asked  me  a  few  questions  about 
myself  and  then  spoke  about  general  matters.  He  prob- 
ably said  quite  trivial,  kindly  things,  but  at  the  time  they 
117 


118  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

were  uttered,  and  for  a  little  while  afterwards,  they 
seemed  rich  and  full  of  wisdom. 

After  lunch  he  showed  me  the  MSS.  of  some  of  his  books. 
I  remember  the  MS.  of  The  Bondman.  It  was  written  in 
a  small,  curiously  artistic  handwriting  on  half  sheets  of 
notepaper,  which  had  been  pasted  on  to  much  larger 
sheets  handsomely  bound.  I  handled  the  book  as  rever- 
ently as  the  young  ladies  of  early  days  caressed  the  pages 
of  the  great  Martin  Tupper.  There  were  many  "  blots  " 
in  the  MS.- — many  alterations,  excisions  and  additions, 
and  it  was  clear,  even  from  a  cursory  examination,  that 
Mr  Hall  Caine  was  a  hard  and  conscientious  worker. 
Upon  this  and  other  books  he  left  me  to  browse  for  an 
hour  whilst  he  went  to  receive  other  callers — all  of  them 
strangers  to  him — who  were  just  arriving. 

Some  of  those  visitors,  as  I  discovered  later,  were  a 
rather  extraordinary  crew  :  men  and  women  from  Lanca- 
shire and  Yorkshire  :  I  mean  absolutely  from  Lancashire 
and  Yorkshire  :  men  and  women  who  had  made  a  little 
money  and  who  had  unbounded  respect  for  people  who 
had  made  a  little  more  :  men  and  women  who  were  sound 
and  good,  but  not  quite  educated  and  who  were  either  like 
fish  out  of  water,  gasping  and  floundering  spasmodically, 
or  positively  frightfully  at  their  ease.  I  recollect  a  tall 
and  handsome  lady  who  prodded  everything  with  a  green 
parasol,  and  two  men  who,  not  too  furtively,  made 
elaborate  efforts  to  estimate  the  amount  of  the  author's 
income. 

We  had  tea  on  a  terrace  in  the  grounds  and  in  the 
evening  I  was  driven  back  to  St  John's,  all  the  other  callers 
returning  to  Douglas. 

The  impression  left  by  Mr  Hall  Caine 's  personality  on 
my  mind  by  that  and  many  subsequent  visits  was  over- 
whelming. He  was  vivid,  alive,  and  full  of  smouldering 
fires ;  short  and  vehement ;  his  eyes  were  large  and 
bright ;  his  voice  beautiful  and  capable  of  a  thousand 


HALL  CAINE  119 

inflections — an  actor's  voice  ;  his  temperament  also  an 
actor's  ;  his  point  of  view  an  actor's.  But  he  never  did 
act ;  invariably  he  was  tragically  (and,  I  must  add,  some- 
times pathetically)  sincere.  He  had  humour,  but  he 
could  not  laugh  at  himself.  His  dress  was  eccentric  ;  he 
wore  a  flapping  hat,  breeches  and  a  jacket  made  of  thick, 
everlasting,  hand-made  cloth.  A  big  tie  bulged  and 
billowed  somewhere  about  his  neck.  He  told  me  on  one 
occasion  that  chars-a-bancs  full  of  trippers  from  Douglas 
continually  passed  along  the  Douglas- Peel  road  and  that 
when  the  trippers  caught  a  sight  of  him  they  would  some- 
times hail  him  with  cries  of  derision  and  shouts  of  laughter. 

"'  At  those  moments,"  he  said,  "  I  am  always  most 
dignified.  I  raise  my  hat  to  them  and  bow  and  their 
laughter  immediately  ceases." 

That  I  could  well  believe,  for  there  is  something  com- 
manding in  his  personality,  something  well  calculated  to 
quell  insolence. 

A  desultory  correspondence  and  a  few  casual  visits 
followed  during  the  next  three  or  four  years,  and  when  I 
was  in  my  very  early  twenties  I  persuaded  Messrs  Greening 
&  Company  to  invite  me  to  write  a  book  on  Hall  Caine  for 
a  popular  series  {English  Writers  of  To-day,  it  was  called) 
they  were  at  that  time  issuing.  Mr  Caine,  upon  being 
approached  by  me,  put  no  hindrance  in  my  way,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  consented  to  give  me  some  assistance  in  the 
way  of  providing  me  with  information  and  a  few  letters 
received  by  him  from  eminent  men.  I  spent  several 
week-ends  at  Greeba  Castle  and  found  in  Mrs  Caine, 
always  charming  and  ideally  gifted  with  tact,  a  delightful 
hostess.  My  book  was  quickly  written.  It  was  a  feeble, 
bombastic  and  ridiculous  performance.  A  friend  of  mine 
(I  thought  he  was  an  enemy)  called  it  '  a  prolonged 
diarrhoea  of  the  emotions."  In  this  book  Hall  Caine  took 
a  very  kindly  interest,  and  he  provided  me  with  autograph 
letters  written  by  Ruskin,  Blackmore,  T.  E.  Brown  and 


120  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

Gladstone  to  insert  in  my  book.  But  I  was,  of  course, 
the  sole  author  of  the  work,  and  Mr  Caine  had  nothing  to 
do  with  it  save  to  put  me  right  on  matters  of  fact  and  to 
tone  down  some  of  my  exuberant  and  sentimental  praise. 
The  silly  volume,  because  of  its  subject,  attracted  a  good 
deal  of  attention,  both  in  this  country  and  in  America, 
though  it  was  not  published  in  the  States.  The  Phila- 
delphia Daily  Eagle,  for  example,  on  the  day  the  book  was 
published,  printed  a  eulogistic  cablegram  review  of  it 
from  London.  But,  for  the  most  part,  my  monograph 
was  mercilessly  slated.  Hall  Caine,  in  addition,  was 
abused  for  consenting  to  be  the  subject  of  it,  and  I  was 
abused  for  having  chosen  him  for  my  subject.  One  paper 
headed  its  review  "  Raising  Caine." 

The  truth  is,  at  this  time  (1901)  Mr  Hall  Caine,  though 
extraordinarily  popular  with  the  public,  was  not  much 
liked  by  a  certain  section  of  the  Press.  His  success  was 
envied  by  some,  perhaps  ;  his  recognition  of  his  own  worth 
was  fiercely  and  almost  universally  resented  ;  and  his 
almost  unconscious  habit  of  advertising  himself — though 
he  did  not  indulge  this  habit  more  than  most  popular 
novelists — could  not  be  tolerated.  Mr  Caine  used  fre- 
quently to  deplore  his  only  too  palpable  unpopularity 
with  the  Press,  and  once  or  twice  he  asked  me  to  explain 
it.  His  own  theory  was  that  he  had  a  few  powerful 
enemies  who  took  advantage  of  every  occasion  to  dis- 
seminate lies  about  him,  but  who  these  enemies  were  he 
never  stated.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  occasionally  said 
injudicious  things  to  reporters  which,  in  cold  print, 
appeared  not  only  self-satisfied  but  vainglorious.  A 
long  and  very  well  written  article  by  Mr  Robert  H. 
Sherard,  in  (I  believe)  The  Daily  Telegraph  caused  him  a 
good  deal  of  anxiety. 

j^  Not  often  does  one  find  a  man  of  Hall  Caine's  very 
special  gifts  endowed  with  the  abilities  of  a  financier.  He 
is  as  quick  and  as  clever  at  driving  a  bargain  as  a  Lanca- 


HALL  CAINE  121 

shire  or  Yorkshire  mill-owner.  There  have  always  been 
and,  I  suppose,  always  will  be  a  large  percentage  of  writers 
who  are  constitutionally  incapable  of  looking  after  their 
own  affairs  ;  they  can  produce,  but  they  cannot  sell. 
Mr  Hall  Caine  does  not  belong  to  these.  He,  more  than 
any  man,  contributed  to  the  breakdown  of  the  three- 
volume  novel  system.  It  was  he  who  helped  to  formulate 
the  Canadian  Copyright  Laws.  With  the  assistance  of 
Major  Pond  (who  in  these  days  remembers  the  great  Major 
Pond  ?)  he  made  tens  of  thousands  of  dollars  by  lecturing 
to  the  Americans.  He  had  the  acumen  and  the  courage  to 
issue  one  of  his  longest  novels  in  two  volumes  at  two 
shillings  net  each.  He  was  the  first  eminent  novelist  to 
make  a  practice  of  publishing  his  works  in  the  middle 
of  the  August  holidays — the  supposed  "  dead  "  season  in 
the  publishing  world.  He  has  bought  farms  in  the  Isle 
of  Man  and  made  them  pay.  He  has  had  commercial 
interests  in  seaside  boarding-houses  and  has  shown  a  bold 
but  wise  enterprise  in  many  of  his  investments.  In  other 
words  he  has,  to  his  honour,  continually  exhibited  abilities 
that  not  one  artist  in  a  hundred  possesses. 

•  •  •••••  • 

I  have  rarely  seen  Hall  Caine  in  a  light-hearted  mood, 
but  I  have  been  with  him  in  more  than  one  hour  of  black 
depression. 

Vividly  do  I  remember  spending  a  few  days  at  Greeba 
Castle  shortly  after  the  time  when  the  publication  of  a 
story  of  his,  that  was  running  serially  in  a  ladies'  paper, 
was  suddenly  and  dramatically  stopped  by  the  editor  of 
that  paper  on  the  score  of  its  alleged  immorality.  The 
story  was  about  to  be  produced  in  book  form  and,  of 
course,  the  editor's  action  had  provided  a  fine  advertise- 
ment ;  this  fact,  however,  did  not  appear  to  console  the 
novelist  in  the  least.  The  most  sensitive  of  men,  he  was 
crushed  by  this  very  public  charge  of  writing  immoral 
literature. 


122  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

For  myself,  when  he  told  me  all  the  circumstances,  I 
merely  laughed.     He  glanced  at  me  sideways. 

"  You  are  amused  ?  "  he  asked.     "  I  wonder  why." 

"  Because  you  are  allowing  yourself  to  be  made  miser- 
able by  a  most  trivial  event." 

"  You  call  it  trivial  that  the  whole  world  should  think 
me  a  man  of  immoral  mind  ?  " 

"  The  whole  world  ?  Why,  the  world  doesn't  trouble 
itself  about  the  matter  in  the  least.  Only  one  man  accuses 
you  of  immoral  writings ;  that  man  is  the  editor  of  the 
paper.  What  on  earth  does  his  opinion  matter  to 
you  ?  " 

"  But  his  opinion  will  be  widely  read  and  will  be  widely 

believed." 

"  Will  be  believed,  you  should  have  added,  by  people 
who  allow  another  man  to  form  their  opinions  for  them. 
What  do  they  matter  ?  " 

He  sighed. 

"  But  they  do  matter,"  said  he,  rather  forlornly.  '  I 
hate  to  think  of  people  out  there  " — he  waved  a  vague 
arm  in  the  direction  of  the  kitchen  garden — "  thinking 
evil  thoughts  and  saying  evil  things  of  me." 

"  '  They  say.     What  do  they  say  ?     Let  them  say,' 
I  quoted. 

We  paced  up  and  down  the  terrace,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the 
ground.     At  length  : 

"  I  wonder  what  you  would  think  of  the  chapter  in 
question,"  he  said  musingly.  "  You  have  read  the  story 
as  far  as  it  has  been  printed.  Well,  I  will  give  you  the 
final  chapters  to  read." 

We  went  to  his  room  and  he  handed  me  a  few  pages  of 
printed  copy.     I  read  them. 

"  Well  ?  "  inquired  he,  when  I  had  finished. 

"  It  is  passionate,  it  is  sexual,"  said  I,  "  but  to  call  it 
immoral  is  to  call  black  white." 

"  You  really  believe  that  ?  "  he  asked,  a  little  anxiously. 


HALL  CAINE  123 


u 


I  do.  I  assure  you  I  do." 
But  the  black  cloud  of  self-distrust  and  misery 
would  not  be  dissipated,  and  that  night,  after  dinner, 
we  sat  over  a  slow  fire,  though  it  was  early  in 
August,  and  talked  long  and  rather  sadly  of  Rossetti, 
of  T.  E.  Brown  and  of  things  that  had  been  said  by 
Peel  fishermen. 

Another  occasion,  when  I  was  with  the  novelist  on  a 
day  of  some  anxiety,  is  equally  clear  in  my  memory.  I 
may  say  at  this  point  that  Hall  Caine  was  invariably  in  a 
condition  of  some  mental  strain  a  few  days  before  and 
after  the  publication  of  one  of  his  stories.  He  was  a  little 
apprehensive  of  the  reviewers,  and  he  was  always  afraid 
lest  the  public  should  not  remain  faithful  to  him.  In  this 
connection  I  remember  him  saying  to  me  once  :  "I  can 
imagine  no  fate  more  tragic  than  for  a  novelist  at  middle 
age,  when  he  believes  his  powers  to  be  at  their  highest, 
to  lose  his  hold  upon  his  public." 

He  would,  I  think,  deny  that  he  cares  what  the  reviewers 
may  say  ;  nevertheless,  my  experience  of  him  tells  me 
that  he  does  care.  In  his  early  life  as  a  novelist  he  was, 
perhaps,  overpraised  ;  certainly  he  but  very  rarely  felt 
the  lash  of  the  critic's  whip.  So  that  when  the  critics 
began  to  condemn  the  work  of  the  man  they  had  once 
praised,  he  was  not  disciplined  to  bear  their  condemnation 
philosophically.  Every  taunt  wounded  him,  every  thrust 
went  home,  every  sneer  was  a  stab. 

But  on  the  occasion  about  which  I  am  now  writing  he 
was  not  depressed  so  much  in  anticipation  of  what  the 
reviewers  might  say  as  on  account  of  the  competition  of 
another  novel  which  had  been  issued  a  few  days  previous 
to  the  date  fixed  for  the  publication  of  a  new  book  of  his 
own.  That  novel  was  Lucas  Malet's  The  History  of  Sir 
Richard  Calmady,  published,  if  my  memory  does  not 
betray  me,  by  Messrs  Methuen. 


124  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

The  first  question  he  asked  me  one  morning  before 
breakfast  was  : 

"  Have  you  read  Sir  Richard  Calmady  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  I  answered. 

"  Well  ?  "  exclaimed  he,  a  little  impatiently,  "  well, 
what  do  you  think  of  it  ?  " 

"  An  amazingly  clever  performance,  but  very  horrible." 

"  Yes,  isn't  it  ?  "  he  cried  eagerly.  '  Horrible  ! 
Ghastly  !     And  yet,  they  tell  me,  people  are  reading  it." 

"  Partly  for  that  reason,  no  doubt." 

"  But  the  public,  the  people,  the  great  reading  public — 
surely  they  will  not  respond  to  the  appeal  of  a  book  of  that 
nature  ?  " 

"  The  public,  you  must  remember,  has  many  hearts  ; 
it  may  well  give  one  to  Sir  Richard  Calmady." 

"  But  my  public  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  even  your  public." 

He  brooded  a  little. 

"  I  am  told  that  Lucas  Malet's  publishers  believe  in  the 
book,"  he  said,  after  a  longish  pause,  "  and  are  prepared 
to  spend  a  small  fortune  in  pushing  it.  And  that,  of 
course,  means  that  it  will  interfere  with,  and  perhaps 
seriously  injure,  the  sales  of  my  own  story.  But  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  public — the  real  public — will  never  read  a 
novel  that  has  for  its  chief  attraction  a  man  with  no  legs." 

I  suggested  that  he  should  postpone  the  publication  of 
his  book  until  the  rage  for  Sir  Richard  Calmady  had  died 
down.  But  no  !  This  would  not  suit  him.  He  must 
catch  the  real  holiday  season  at  its  full  tide.  August  was 
the  best  month  in  the  year,  and  the  first  week  the  best 
week  in  the  month,  and  the  fifth  day  the  best  day  of  the 
week. 

Hall  Caine  always  shows  great  perspicacity  in  selecting 
the  date  of  publication  for  his  books  ;  he  will  never  allow 
it  to  synchronise  with  any  other  big  event.  Moreover,  his 
book  must  be  born  to  an  expectant  world  ;  it  must  be  well 


HALL  CAINE  125 

advertised  beforehand.  Unlike  other  writers,  he  does  not 
work  hard  at  a  book,  finish  it  and  then  hand  it  over  to  a 
publisher  to  deal  with  more  or  less  as  he  thinks  fit.  In  a 
sense,  he  is  his  own  publisher,  and  as  a  rule  he  interests 
himself  in  the  sale  of  a  new  work  of  his  own,  in  its  dis- 
tribution, its  printing  and  binding,  etc.,  as  much  as  the 
actual  publisher  himself. 

It  used  to  be  a  popular  belief — but  Arnold  Bennett  has 
done  much  to  kill  it — that  an  author  laughs  and  cries  with 
the  creatures  of  his  imagination,  that  he  lives  and  dreams 
with  them,  and  that  when  his  book  is  finished,  and  the  time 
comes  for  him  to  part  from  them,  he  does  so  with  pain  that 
is  little  short  of  anguish.  So  far  as  most  authors  are  con- 
cerned, this  is  exactly  opposite  to  the  real  facts.  Before 
an  author  is  half-way  through  his  novel  he  is  heartily  sick 
of  his  characters  ;  his  beautiful  heroine  is  an  unmitigated 
nuisance  and  his  hero  an  incredible  bore.  He  is  only  too 
thankful  to  reach  the  end  of  the  last  chapter  and  leave  his 
puppets  for  ever. 

But  this  is  not  so  with  Hall  Caine.  His  novels,  as  you 
know,  do  not  err  on  the  side  of  brevity,  and  though  it  is 
possible  you  may  tire  of  his  heroine,  you  may  be  absolutely 
certain  that  her  creator  never  does.  To  this  novelist  the 
creatures  of  his  imagination  are,  in  one  sense,  more  real 
than  the  material  beings  around  him.  He  is  wholly 
dominated  by  his  imagination.  His  brain  is  peopled  by 
creatures  of  his  own  fancy.  His  emotions  are  engaged  on 
behalf  of  people  who  do  not  exist.  His  consciousness  is 
confined  to  the  little  world  he  has  created  for  himself  and 
he  is  saturated  with  and  submerged  by  fancies  that  his 
imagination  has  bred. 

I  shall  never  forget  coming  across  him  early  one  morning 
in  the  little  shaded  footway  that  winds  among  trees  in  the 
castle  grounds  to  the  main  drive.  His  eyes  were  dim,  and 
he  had  not  perfect  control  of  his  voice. 


126  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

"  I  have  been  finishing  my  book,"  he  said,  referring  to 
The  Eternal  City,  "  and  I  wept  as  I  wrote." 

I  have  been  with  him  on  several  occasions  when  he  has 
been  finishing  his  books,  and  I  have  always  found  him  in 
alternating  moods  of  exhaustion  and  emotional  excite- 
ment. Whatever  else  may  be  charged  against  him,  it 
cannot  with  truth  be  said  that  he  does  not  put  his  whole 
soul  into  his  work. 

•  •••••  •• 

As  a  man  he  is  the  most  loyal  of  friends  and  the  most 
loyal  of  enemies.  He  can  hate  bitterly.  I  have  heard  him 
eloquent  in  his  hate.  I  have  heard  him  hate  W.  T.  Stead 
and  Frank  Harris,  and  nothing  could  have  exceeded  his 
bitterness.  But  he  does  not  nurse  his  hatred,  and  he  is  a 
man  quick  to  forgive. 

I  cannot  close  this  chapter  without  a  word  concerning 
his  generosity.  By  "'  generosity  ri  I  do  not  mean  only 
that  he  is  free  with  money,  but  that  he  will  give  his  time, 
the  work  of  his  brain,  his  advice  and  even  himself  for  any 
good  cause  and  for  any  man  in  need.  To  struggling 
authors  he  is  the  very  soul  of  generosity.  He  struggled 
himself.  Born  on  a  coal  barge  in  Runcorn,  largely  self- 
educated,  having  experienced  the  anxiety  of  straitened 
means  and  hope  deferred,  he  has  known  intimately  the 
hardships  of  life,  and  will  do  all  in  his  power  to  shield  others 
from  them.  On  several  occasions  I  have  met  people — 
mostly  young  men — who  have  come  to  him  for  help  and 
advice  in  beginning  a  literary  career.  He  is  never 
extravagant  in  his  praise  of  their  work,  but  if  he  finds 
merit  in  it  he  is  always  warmly  encouraging.  Years 
before  I  met  him  face  to  face,  when  I  was  a  boy  of  four- 
teen, I  sent  him  a  long  poem  I  had  written  in  the  Spen- 
serian stanza,  and  the  first  letters  I  received  from  him 
were  careful  and  most  helpful  criticisms  of  this  juvenile 
literary  effort.  I  had  written  to  him  as  an  entire  stranger 
and  without  any  introduction  whatever.     In  my  youth 


HALL  CAINE  127 

and  egotism  I  had  taken  his  replies  as  a  matter  of  course  ; 
it  was  only  later  that  I  recognised  the  most  kindly  spirit 
that  prompted  a  busy  and  often  harassed  man  to  give  his 
time  and  energy  to  a  boy  whose  work  can  have  had  very 
little  to  recommend  it. 


CHAPTER  XI 
MORE  WRITERS 

Rev.  T.  E.  Brown — A.  R.  Orage — Norman  Angell — St  John  Ervine 
—  Charles  Marriott  —  Max  Beerbohm  —  Israel  Zangwill  — 
Alphonse  Courlander  —  Ivan  Heald  —  Dixon  Scott  —  Barry 
Pain — Cunninghame  Graham 

I  WONDER  how  many  readers  turn  nowadays  to 
the  poetical  works  of  Thomas  Edward  Brown,  the 
Manx  poet.  Not  a  great  number,  I  think.  Indeed, 
I  doubt  if  he  ever  had  a  large  audience,  though  he  had  the 
power  of  exciting  almost  unlimited  enthusiasm  in  the 
breasts  of  those  whom  he  did  attract.  He  was  praised 
whole-heartedly  by  George  Eliot,  George  Meredith, 
W.  E.  Henley  and  other  famous  writers,  and  the  publica- 
tion of  his  Letters  a  year  or  two  after  his  death  made  a 
great  stir. 

In  my  boyhood's  days  I  was  one  of  Brown's  most 
devoted  disciples.  He  had  a  charming  trick  of  infusing 
scholarship  with  the  real  "  stuff  "  of  humanity,  that  ap- 
pealed to  me  irresistibly,  and  I  liked  the  honest  sensuality 
of  his  Roman  Women  and  the  pathos  of  such  poems  as 
Aber  Stations  and  Epistola  ad  Dakyns.  Perhaps  I  could 
not  read  his  poems  now,  for,  truth  to  tell,  they  "  gush  ' 
almost  indecently.  However,  he  remains  the  most 
distinguished  literary  figure  that  the  little  Isle  of  Man 
has  produced,  and  two  or  three  of  his  lyrics  will  persist 
far  into  the  future. 

I  met  him  at  Greeba  Castle,  Mr  Hall  Caine's  Manx 
residence,  when  I  was  still  a  schoolboy.  It  was  just  a 
few  months  before  Brown's  death,  and  a  rather  sad 
incident  marked  his  visit  to  Hall  Caine. 

128 


MORE  WRITERS  129 

We  were  at  lunch  when  he  arrived  :  a  rather  solemn 
lunch  :  a  lunch  at  which  the  guests  were  ill  assorted.  A 
ponderous  scholar  from  Scotland  insisted  upon  discussing 
the  authorship  of  Homer — a  subject  about  which  our 
host  evidently  knew  little  and  cared  less.  In  the  middle 
of  a  rather  painful  silence,  Brown  was  ushered  into  the 
dining-room  ;  he  was  carrying  a  little  book  of  Laurence 
Binyon's  that  had  just  been  published.  His  burly  figure, 
his  genial  face,  his  ready  tongue  soon  lifted  us  out  of  the 
atmosphere  of  black  boredom  that  had  settled  upon  us. 
In  five  minutes  he  had  disposed  of  the  Scottish  scholar, 
had  drunk  a  whisky  and  soda,  and  had  combated  Hall 
Caine's  opinion  that  Binyon  "'  had  entirely  missed  the 
point  "  in  one  of  the  poems  he  (Binyon)  had  written. 

All  afternoon  we  talked.  Brown  had  come  all  the  way 
from  Ramsey  (some  twenty-four  miles,  four  of  which  had 
to  be  walked)  to  spend  a  few  hours  with  his  friend,  and, 
as  he  was  a  man  greedy  of  enjoyment,  not  a  single  moment 
was  wasted.  It  soon  appeared  that  Brown  was  a  great 
admirer  of  Hall  Caine's — it  should  be  mentioned  that  Mr 
Caine  had  not  then  written  The  Prodigal  Son  or  The 
Eternal  City — and  the  novelist  basked  in  the  tactful  praise 
that  was  bestowed  upon  him. 

As  we  were  talking,  a  servant  came  with  the  news  that 
eleven  Americans  had  arrived  and  had  been  shown  into 
the  library.  Hall  Caine  left  the  room  to  give  them  tea. 
An  hour  later,  he  came  back,  exhausted  but  not  displeased. 

"  One  of  the  penalties  of  fame,"  he  said,  with  a  sigh. 

''  But  you  are  not  the  only  one  who  suffers  from  your 
own  fame,"  observed  Brown.  '  I  am  constantly  besieged 
by  American  journalists,  who  come  to  me  for  private 
information  about  yourself.  A  very  persistent  lady  from 
New  York  came  only  the  other  day  and  wished  to  know 
if  you  were  educated." 

Hall  Caine  laughed. 

"  What  did  you  say  ?  "  he  asked. 


130  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

"Well,  I  asked  her  what  she  meant  by  'education,' 
and  she  replied  :   '  Is  he  at  all  like  Matthew  Arnold  ?  '  " 

Towards  evening,  Brown  departed. 

Next  morning,  a  note  arrived  from  him,  evidently 
written  immediately  on  his  return  home  the  previous 
evening.  The  note  expressed  the  writer's  regret  that  he 
had  been  unable  to  visit  Greeba  Castle  that  day  ;  he  had 
fully  intended  coming,  but  had  been  prevented  at  the 
last  moment.  This  letter  disturbed  Hall  Caine  enormously. 
'  His  mind  is  going,"  he  said  ;  'I  have  noticed  several 
other  signs  of  vanishing  memory,  if  not  of  something  worse, 
during  the  last  few  months." 

There  was,  indeed,  I  have  always  thought,  a  streak  of 
morbid  eccentricity  in  Brown's  intellectual  make-up.  A 
careful  reader  of  his  letters  will  notice  many  moods  of 
fierce  exaltation  engendered  by  wholly  inadequate  and 
inexplicable  causes.  His  sudden  death  was  perhaps  a 
blessing  in  disguise. 

There  are  in  London  two  or  three  men,  not  known 
to  the  general  public,  whose  influence  on  modern  thought 
is  most  profound  and  most  disturbing.  Of  these  men 
A.  R.  Orage,  the  editor  of  The  New  Age,  is  quite  the  most 
distinguished.  What  circulation  his  paper  enjoys,  I  do 
not  know  ;  it  cannot  be  large  ;  probably  it  is  not  more 
than  two  or  three  thousand  ;  perhaps  it  is  not  even  so 
much  as  that.  But  the  men  and  women  who  read  it  are 
men  and  women  who  count — people  who  welcome  daring 
and  original  thought,  who  hold  important  positions  in  the 
civic,  social,  political  and  artistic  worlds,  and  who  eagerly 
disseminate  the  seeds  of  thought  they  pick  up  from  the 
study  of  The  New  Age.  Tens  of  thousands  of  people  have 
been  influenced  by  this  paper  who  have  never  even 
heard  its  name.  It  does  not  educate  the  masses  directly  : 
it  reaches  them  through  the  medium  of  its  few  but 
exceedingly  able  readers. 


MORE  WRITERS  131 

The  New  Age  is  professedly  a  Socialist  organ,  but  the 
promulgation  of  socialistic  doctrines  is  only  a  part  of 
its  policy  and  work.  Its  literary,  artistic  and  musical 
criticism  is  the  sanest,  the  bravest  and  the  most  brilliant 
that  can  be  read  in  England.  It  reverences  neither  power 
nor  reputation  ;  it  is  subtle  and  unsparing  ;  and,  if  it  is 
sometimes  cruel,  it  is  cruel  with  a  purpose.  All  sleek 
money-makers  in  Art  have  reason  to  fear  Orage,  for  his 
rapier  wit  may  at  any  moment  glance  and  slide  between 
their  ribs  and  release  the  hot  air  that  is  at  once  the 
inspiration  and  the  material  of  all  their  works. 

Orage  has  more  than  a  touch  of  genius.  It  was 
Baudelaire  (wasn't  it  ?)  who  said  that  genius  was  the 
power  to  look  upon  the  world  with  the  eyes  of  a  child. 
Well,  Orage  has  the  all-seeing,  non-rejecting  eyes  of 
a  child.  He  has  also  the  eternal  spirit  of  youth.  One 
cannot  imagine  him  growing  old.  Perhaps  his  most 
interesting  characteristic  is  his  power  of  attracting  and 
holding  friends  ;  he  is  the  most  hero-worshipped  of  men. 
Having  once  given  his  friendship,  however,  he  exacts 
the  utmost  loyalty  ;  treachery  is  the  one  sin  that  can 
never  be  forgiven. 

I  knew  Orage  years  ago,  when  he  was  still  in  Leeds 
teaching  the  young  idea  how  to  shoot.  He  was  then  a 
prominent  member  of  the  Theosophical  Society  and 
lectured  a  good  deal — and  rather  dangerously,  I  think — 
on  Nietzsche.  His  gospel,  always  preached  with  his 
tongue  in  his  cheek,  that  every  man  and  woman  should 
do  precisely  what  he  or  she  desires,  acted  like  heady  wine 
on  the  gasping  and  enthusiastic  young  ladies  who  used  to 
sit  in  rows  worshipping  him.  They  wanted  to  do  all 
kinds  of  terrible  things,  and  as  Orage,  backed  by  "  that 
great  German,"  Nietzsche,  had  sanctioned  their  most 
secret  desires,  they  were  resolved  to  begin  at  once  their 
career  of  licence.  They  used  to  "  stay  behind  "  when  the 
lectures  were  over,  and  question  Orage  with  their  lips  and 


132  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

invite  him  with  their  eyes,  and  it  used  to  be  most  amusing 
and  a  little  pathetic  to  listen  to  the  gay  and  half-veiled 
insults  with  which  Orage  at  once  thwarted  and  bewildered 
his  silly  devotees. 

He  had  in  those  days  a  wonderful  gift  of  talking  a 
most  divine  nonsense- — a  spurious  wisdom  that  ran  closely 
along  the  border-line  of  rank  absurdity.  The  "cosmic 
consciousness  "  of  Walt  Whitman  was  a  great  theme  of 
his,  and  Orage,  in  his  subtle,  devilishly  clever  way,  would 
lead  his  listeners  on  to  the  very  threshold  of  occult 
knowledge — and  leave  them  there,  wide-eyed  and  wonder- 
struck. 

I  have  never  known  an  editor  more  jealous  of  the  reputa- 
tion of  his  paper  than  Orage  is  of  The  New  Age.  No  con- 
sideration of  friendship  would  induce  him  to  print  a  dull 
article,  however  sound,  and  when  one  of  his  contributors 
becomes  sententious,  or  slack,  or  banal — out  he  goes, 
neck  and  crop.  Among  the  contributors  to  The  New  Age 
I  remember  writers  as  different  in  mental  calibre  as  John 
Davidson  and  Edward  Carpenter,  Frank  Harris  and  Cecil 
Chesterton,  Arnold  Bennett  and  Janet  Achurch.  These 
and  scores  of  equally  distinguished  people  have  written  for 
Orage.  Why  ?  For  money  ?  Well,  scarcely  ;  The  New 
Age's  rates  of  pay  must  be  very  modest.  For  what,  then  ? 
They  have  written  because  in  The  New  Age  they  can  tell 
the  unadulterated  truth  and  because  they  are  proud  to 
see  their  work  in  that  paper. 

•  ••••••* 

To  many  people  Norman  Angell  is  a  rather  sinister 
figure,  and  the  people  who  attack  him  most  violently 
to-day  are  precisely  those  who  praised  him  most  when  he 
wrote  his  fust  book.  He  has  been  overpraised  and  spoilt. 
His  intellectual  attainments  are  not  greatly  above  the 
average,  and  his  thinking  is  not  always  honest.  In  the 
early  days  of  the  war  it  used  to  be  amusing  to  see 
him  working  among   his  spectacled   and  yellow-skinned 


MORE  WRITERS  133 

assistants  ;  he  was  small  but  magisterial,  and  he  was 
always  tucking  sheets  of  foolscap  into  long  envelopes 
and  looking  very  important  as  he  did  so.  I  really  believe 
that  in  those  days  of  August,  1914,  he  had  a  vague  idea 
that  he  and  his  helpers  could  stop  the  war  at  any  moment 
they  chose.  Certainly,  he  was  very  cross  with  the  war. 
Europe  was  behaving  in  her  old,  mad  way  without  having 
previously  consulted  him. 

"  But  it  will  soon  be  over,"  he  assured  me.  '  You 
see " 

He  stopped  and  waved  his  hand  vaguely  in  the  direction 
of  a  typewriter,  smothered  in  documents. 

"  Quite,"  said  I  uncomprehendingly.    '  You  mean ? ': 

'  Yes  ;  that's  it.  Exhaustion.  It  can't  go  on  for  ever. 
It  must  stop  some  time." 

A  smile  that  came  from  nowhere  straggled  into  his  face. 
I  felt  vaguely  discomfited. 

"  You  see,  we  are  hard  at  it,"  he  said,  and,  as  he 
spoke,  he  indicated  a  pale,  ill-shaven  youth  who  was 
wandering  aimlessly  about  the  office,  his  hands  full  of 
papers. 

A  queer  little  chap,  Angell.  Very  much  in  earnest,  of 
course,  very  sure  of  himself,  very  pushing,  very  "  idealistic." 

St  John  Ervine  is  a  writer  who  already  counts  for  much 
but  who,  a  few  years  hence,  will  count  for  a  good  deal 
more.  He  is  by  way  of  being  a  protege  of  Bernard  Shaw, 
and  earnest  young  Fabians  have  already  learned  to 
reverence  him. 

We  worked  together  on  The  Daily  Citizen,  he  being 
dramatic  critic.  He  was  not  enormously  popular  with 
the  rest  of  the  staff,  for  he  was  very  "  high-brow  " ;  his 
face  was  smooth,  sleek  and  superior,  and  he  had  a  habit  of 
being  friendly  with  a  man  one  day  and  scarcely  recognising 
him  the  next.  My  own  relations  with  him  were  of  the 
most  disagreeable.     A  play  of  his  was  given  at  the  Court 


134  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

Theatre,  and  I  was  sent  to  criticise  it.     I  did  criticise  it  : 
the  play  was  ugly,  clever  and  sordid. 

"  But,"  protested  Ervine,  pale  with  vexation,  the  next 
time  he  met  me,  "  but  you  have  entirely  misunderstood 
my  play.     You  can't  have  stayed  till  the  end." 

"  It  was  very  painful  for  me,  Ervine,"  said  I,  "  but  I 
really  did  stick  it  out  to  the  finish.  Why  do  you  young 
fellows  write  so  depressingly  ?  You  look  happy  enough, 
Ervine " 

"  The  close  of  my  play  is  the  part  that  matters.  Bernard 
Shaw  said  so.   ..." 

We  parted  :  he,  with  a  look  of  successful  hauteur  ;  I, 
broken  and  crushed. 

A  week  or  so  later  I  met  him  at  one  of  Herbert  Hughes's 
jolly  Sunday  evenings  in  Chelsea. 

'  You  know  Gerald  Cumberland,  of  course,"  said  some- 
one who  was  introducing  him  to  people. 

He  drew  himself  up  with  great  dignity  and  stared  at  me 
through  his  pince-nez. 

"  I  think,"  said  he,  "  yes,  I  believe  we  have  met  before 
somewhere.     Where  was  it,  Mr  .  .  .  er  .  .  .  Cumberland  ?  " 

Shortly  after,  he  left  The  Daily  Citizen,  and  I  was  given 
the  position  which  he  had  occupied  with  so  much  conscious 
distinction.  I  somehow  think  that  when  the  war  is  over 
and  we  meet,  he  will  not  know  me.  Ervine  is  very  much 
like  .that. 

•  ••  •  •  •  •• 

Fifteen  years  is  a  long  time  in  the  literary  world,  and 
Charles  Marriott's  The  Column,  which  threw  everybody 
into  fever-heat  somewhere  about  1902,  is,  I  suppose, 
forgotten.  It  was  a  "  first "  novel.  Uncritical  Ouida 
loved  it ;  W.  E.  Henley  unbent  and  wrote  a  Meredithian 
letter  to  its  author  ;  W.  L.  Courtney  seized  some  of  his 
short  stories  for  The  Fortnightly  Review ;  and  I  suppose 
(though  I  really  don't  know  this)  The  Spectator  wrote  five 
lines   of  disapproval.     It  was  a   brilliant   book ;    fresh, 


MORE  WRITERS  135 

original,  provocative.  It  promised  a  lot :  it  promised  too 
much  ;  the  author  has  since  written  many  distinguished 
books,  but  none  of  them  is  as  good  as  The  Column  said 
they  would  be. 

Marriott  was  living  at  Lamorna,  a  tiny  cove  in  Cornwall, 
when  I  first  knew  him.  He  was  tall,  lantern-jawed  and 
spectacled.  He  was  interested  in  everything,  but  it 
appeared  to  me  even  then  that  he  was  a  little  inhuman. 
He  lacked  vulgarity  ;  rude  things  repelled  him  enormously, 
unnaturally ;  he  had  no  literary  delight — or  else  his 
delight  was  too  literary  :  I  don't  know — in  coarseness. 
Fastidious  to  the  finger-tips,  he  would  rather  go  without 
dinner  than  split  an  infinitive.  Since  those  days  Marriott 
has  gone  on  refining  himself  until  there  is  very  little 
Marriott  left.  Even  the  longest  and  the  thickest  pencil 
may  be  sharpened  too  frequently. 

Many  years  after  I  met  him  at  an  exhibition  of  pictures 
in  Bond  Street.  He  was  then  almost  old,  tired,  pre- 
occupied. He  is  quite  the  last  man  to  be  a  journalist ; 
his  art  criticism  is  wonderfully  fine,  but  a  life  standing  on 
the  polished  floors  of  galleries  between  Bond  Street  and 
Leicester  Square  is  soul-corroding  and  heart-breaking. 
Marriott's  mind  no  longer  darts  and  leaps.  It  moves 
gently,  very  gently. 

•  ••••  ••• 

Max  Beerbohm  is  not  so  witty  in  conversation  as  one 
might  expect.  On  the  spur  of  the  moment  he  has  little 
verbal  readiness  ;  his  mind  is  purely  literary.  He  bears 
no  resemblance  to  his  late  brother,  Sir  Herbert  Beerbohm 
Tree,  one  of  the  cleverest  conversationalists  I  have  ever 
met. 

A  short,  mild  and  debonair  figure  received  me  one  May 
afternoon  in  a  house  which,  if  not  in  Cavendish  Square, 
was  somewhere  in  its  neighbourhood.  In  my  later 
schoolboy  days  Max  was  very  much  cultivated  by  those 
of  the  younger  generation  who  liked  to  flunk  themselves 


136  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

enormously  in  the  swim.  We  used  to  '  collect  "  Max 
Beerbohm's — not  his  caricatures,  for  they  were  far  and 
away  beyond  our  means  ;  but  his  articles.  I  remember 
a  rather  startling  article  of  his  in  The  Yellow  Book  which 
I  had  bound  in  lizard-skin,  and  a  friend  of  mine  had  all 
Max's  Saturday  Review  articles  beautifully  typewritten 
on  thick  yellow  paper  and  bound  in  scarlet  cardboard. 
Max  was  precious,  Max  was  deliciously  impertinent,  Max 
was  too  frightfully  clever  for  words. 

When  I  called  upon  him  four  or  five  years  ago  I  had, 
I  need  scarcely  say,  long  outgrown  my  early  infatuation, 
for  he  had  begun  to  "  date,"  and  was  safely  in  his  niche 
among  the  men  of  the  nineties.  But  half-an-hour's  talk 
with  him  revived  some  of  the  old  fascination.  He  had 
"  atmosphere  "  ;  his  personality  created  an  environment ; 
he  brought  a  flavour  of  far-off  days.  We  talked  quite 
pleasantly  of  his  art,  but  he  said  nothing  that  has  stuck 
in  my  memory,  and  my  questions  seemed  to  amuse  rather 
than  interest  him.  His  small  dapper  figure  gave  one  the 
impression  of  a  schoolboy  who  had  grown  a  little  tired, 
who  had  prematurely  developed  his  talents,  and  who  had 
just  fallen  short  of  winning  a  big  prize. 

He  led  the  way  to  the  front  door,  shook  me  by  the  hand, 
looked  at  me  meditatively  for  a  moment,  smiled  faintly, 
and  .  .  .  vanished. 

•  ••••••• 

Of  Israel  Zangwill  I  can  give  only  an  impression.  I 
see  him  now  as  I  saw  him  one  hot  afternoon  at  his  rooms 
in  the  Temple.  A  dark  man,  a  spare  man,  a  man  very 
much  in  earnest  and  anxious  to  be  just.  He  was  perspir- 
ing slightly,  I  remember,  and  he  bent  forward  a  little  so 
as  to  hear  and  understand  every  word  I  said.  I  had  a 
request  to  make  :  a  favour  to  ask.  He  listened  patiently, 
gave  me  a  cup  of  tea,  and  stirred  his  own.  For  a  little 
he  ruminated.  Then  he  turned  to  me  and  lifted  his  eye- 
brows— lifted  his  eyebrows  rather  high.     I  repeated  my 


MORE  WRITERS  137 

request,  giving  further  details.  I  was  a  little  confused. 
He  studied  my  confusion,  not  cruelly,  but  in  the  way  that 
a  trained  observer  studies  everything  that  comes  under 
his  notice.  Then :  "  Ye-es,"  he  said  ;  "  I  see.  I  see." 
And  then  there  was  a  minute's  silence. 

"  I  will  do  what  you  want,"  he  remarked,  at  length. 
"  I  will  do  it  willingly — most  willingly." 

And  he  did.  Our  little  business  entailed  some  sub- 
sequent correspondence,  and  some  work  on  Zangwill's 
part.  The  work  was  done  promptly ;  his  letters  an- 
swered mine  by  return  of  post.  He  gained  nothing  by 
his  work,  whereas  the  paper  I  represented  gained  a  great 
deal. 

•  ••••••* 

Alphonse  Courlander  was  one  of  the  many  young  and 
promising  writers  whom  the  war  has  killed.  He  was  one 
of  the  most  hard-working  journalists  in  Fleet  Street,  and 
if  he  was  not  precisely  brilliant,  he  had  unusual  gifts  and 
used  them  to  good  purpose.  I  could  never  read  his  novels, 
but  I  understand  they  met  with  a  certain  success,  and 
people  whose  opinion  I  respect  have  spoken  highly  of 
them. 

He  represented  The  Daily  Express  in  Paris  at  the  time 
the  war  broke  out.  He  was  the  most  conscientious  of 
men,  and  he  grappled  with  the  extra  work  that  grew  up 
with  the  war  with  a  fierce  and  fanatical  energy.  He 
overworked  himself,  and  the  horror  of  the  war  appears  to 
have  got  on  his  nerves.  He  disappeared  from  Paris  and 
was  found  wandering  alone  in  London,  neurasthenic, 
beaten,  purposeless.     A  week  or  two  later  he  died. 

Courlander  was  a  good  example  of  a  not  unusual  type 
of  man  one  frequently  meets  in  Fleet  Street — a  type  that, 
in  the  end,  is  bound  to  meet  either  failure  or  tragedy. 
He  was  too  highly  strung  for  the  rigours  of  the  game : 
too  sensitive  ;  too  ambitious  for  his  weak  frame.  The 
type  either  takes  to  drink  or  wears  itself  out  long  before 


138  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

middle  age.  Courlander  was  an  abstemious  man  ;  perhaps 
if  he  had  "  let  himself  go  "  occasionally,  he  would  have 
stood  the  strain  of  his  work  better.  When  I  saw  him, 
he  was  always  busy,  always  up  to  date,  always  writing 
or  going  to  write  a  novel  in  his  spare  time.  He  had  very 
little  inventive  faculty  and  used  to  worry  over  his  plots 
and  worry  his  friends  over  them.  '  Plots  !  ...  as  if 
plots  matter  if  you  have  anything  to  say  !  "  I  used  to 
urge.     And  then  he  would  look  at  me,  mystified. 

"  But,  Cumberland,  what  can  you  know  about  it  ? 
You  have  never  written  a  novel." 

"Oh,  but  I  have,"  I  would  reply,  "  but  no  one  will 
publish  them." 

"  Ah  !   that's  the  reason." 

And  he  really  believed  that  that  was  the  reason. 

Ivan  Heald  was  a  colleague  of  Courlander— a  colleague 
any  man  in  Fleet  Street  would  have  been  glad  to  possess. 
Heald  was  original,  and  he  created  a  record  in  so  far  as  he 
was  the  first  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  only  man  to  be 
employed  by  a  British  daily  paper  to  write  a  "  funny 
story  "  each  day.  He  made  a  wide  reputation,  a  reputa- 
tion that,  no  doubt,  pleased  him,  but  he  had  no  real 
ambition.  People  who  "  got  on  "  rather  amused  him — 
that  is  to  say,  if  their  success  was  won  at  the  expense  of 
experience  of  life.  I  never  met  a  man  more  full  of  zest 
for  life,  a  man  more  eager  for  experience,  a  man  who 
retained  his  youth  so  successfully.  He  was  vivid,  care- 
less, tolerant  and,  in  spite  of  every  appearance  to  the 
contrary,  essentially  serious-minded.  It  was  the  simple 
pleasures  of  life  that  attracted  him. 

He  had  no  scholarship,  but  his  mind  was  well  ordered, 
and  his  appreciation  of  natural  and  artistic  beauty  was 
of  the  keenest. 

I  remember  that  when  we  were  holidaying  together  at 
Oxford  he  would  become  almost  angry  with  me  because  I 


MORE  WRITERS  139 

could  not  immediately  perceive  the  beauty  of  certain 
lines — the  outlines  of  trees,  the  curve  of  a  table-napkin, 
the  pattern  made  by  the  ropes  of  a  tent,  and  so  on. 

1  You  should  get  Eddie  or  Norman  Morrow  to  go  a 
walk  with  you,"  he  said.  "  They  would  make  you  see 
things." 

He  loved  folk-songs,  Irish  peasants,  the  plays  of  Synge, 
the  Russian  Ballet,  the  Thames,  the  homely  comfort  of 
a  country  inn.  His  feeling  for  family  life  was  strong, 
and  Friday  evenings  at  the  Healds',  where  one  met  his 
mother  and  sisters,  as  clever  if  not  so  vivid  as  he  himself, 
were  one  of  the  great  recurring  pleasures  of  many  men's 
lives. 

He  was  wounded  in  Gallipoli,  nursed  back  to  health, 
transferred  to  the  R.F.C.,  and  died  (in  all  probability,  for 
the  exact  manner  of  his  death  is  not  certainly  known)  in 
the  air.  A  death  he  would  have  desired.  But  Ivan 
Heald  should  not  have  died,  and  sometimes  I  am  tempted 
to  think  that  he  still  lives,  that  something  in  him  still 
lives — something  that  was  rich  and  strange  and  beautiful. 
The  other  day  I  came  across  one  of  the  little  notes  he  used 
to  scribble  to  me.  It  is  written  from  Ireland,  and  because 
it  is  so  like  him  I  give  it  here  : 

Dear  Gerald, — If  only  I  had  the  nice  stiff  paper  and 
the  delicate  pen  nib,  I  would  try  to  write  a  letter  to  you 
like  the  ones  you  send  me.  There  came  a  thrill  yesterday. 
As  I  sat  in  my  little  parlour  toying  with  my  last  month's 
Ulster  Guardian,  there  leapt  out  of  the  page  your  poem, 
Fashioned  of  Dreams  You  Are  [reprinted  from  a  magazine]. 
It  was  as  though  the  sea  between  us  had  suddenly  shrunk 
to  a  couple  of  glasses  of  whisky.  I  shall  never  pass  a 
Poet's  Corner  again  without  looking  for  you.  There  are 
poets  here,  too.  An  old-age  pensioner  describing  a 
wonderful  fish  he  had  seen  told  me  that  it  was  "  a  gay  and 
antic  fish,  fresh  and  smart  and  soople."     I  shall  leave  for 


140  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

home  to-morrow  evening  and  see  you  on  Sunday  night, 
and  if  there  is  one  bottle  of  red  wine  left  in  the  world, 
you  and  I  will  surely  drag  it  out  of  the  dust.  How  the 
bottles  must  wonder  under  their  cobwebs  at  this  strange 
turn  of  fate—that  the  Master  Butler  may  either  transform 
them  into  sparkling  phrases  and  beautiful  thoughts  through 
rare  fellows  like  us,  or  send  them  to  dreary  death  in  the 

paunch  of  fools  like 

Ivan. 

Dixon  Scott  used  to  throw  me  into  little  ecstasies  by 
his  reviews  in  The  Manchester  Guardian,  and  I  often  used 
to  wonder  if  I  should  meet  him.  Our  paths  crossed  for  a 
brief  minute  not  long  before  we  left  England — he  to  meet 
his  death  in  France,  and  I  to  sit  and  wait  in  Serbia.  It 
was  at  the  end  of  one  of  my  evenings  in  the  Cafe  Royal, 
where  one  used  to  sip  absinthe,  smoke  a  cigar,  and  listen 
to  Orage.  It  was  "  Time,  gentlemen,  please  "  :  12-30  a.m.  : 
in  Army  parlance,  0030  hours.  We  were  all  very  merry  as 
we  crowded  into  Regent  Street,  and  I  heard  a  voice  behind 
me  say  :    "  Dixon  Scott." 

I  turned  round  immediately. 

"  Are  you  Dixon  Scott  ?  "  I  asked  a  man — a  man 
who  looked  as  unlike  my  preconceived  picture  of  him  as 
possible. 

"  Yes,  and  someone  has  just  told  me  you  are  Gerald 
Cumberland." 

'  How  awfully  jolly,"  said  I,  "  for  now  I  have  the 
opportunity  of  telling  you  how  much  I  admire  your 
wonderful  genius." 

"  Tophole  !  "  said  he.     "  I  love  praise,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  R&-ther  !  "  said  I. 

And  then  I  fought  for  a  taxi  and  saw  Scott  no  more. 

•  ••••••■ 

Barry  Pain,  like  the  gentleman  who  used  to  be  known 
as  Adrian  Ross,  leads  a  double  intellectual  life.     He  earns 


MORE  WRITERS  141 

his  bread  by  writing  humorous  literature  ;  he  is  the  king 
of  modern  jesters  ;  but  secretly  (and  perhaps  in  shame)  he 
studies  philosophy  and  metaphysics  and  is  known  to  have 
written  a  big  two-volume  work  dealing  with  the  furtive 
processes  of  the  human  mind.  He  is  a  scholar,  but  Fate 
has  made  of  him  a  manufacturer  of  jokes.  While  his 
tougher  intellectual  faculties  are  wrestling  with  the  basic 
problems  of  the  universe — the  whence,  whither  and  why 
of  things — his  observing  eye  is  noting  the  little  dis- 
crepancies of  life,  the  jolly  frailties  of  human  nature,  the 
absurdities  of  our  everyday  existence. 

He  revealed  little  of  his  capacity  for  humour  when  he 
entertained  me  to  whisky  and  soda  at  his  club.  I  found 
a  big,  bearded  and  rather  fleshy  man  rolling  about  in  a 
very  easy  chair.  I  had  been  sent  to  interview  him  by  one 
of  those  very  pushing  newspapers  that,  in  the  Silly  Season 
especially,  run  absurd  "  stories."  I  have  not  the  slightest 
recollection  of  the  particular  story  that  took  me  to  Barry 
Pain,  but  I  am  perfectly  certain  that  it  was  preposterous, 
and  I  am  perfectly  certain  that  my  news  editor- — he  was 
Stanley  Bishop,  of  blessed  memory — expected  me  to 
bring  back  to  the  office  several  gems  of  humour  tempted 
from  the  brain  and  stolen  from  the  lips  of  the  famous 
writer.  But  Pain  was  coy.  Perhaps  he  does  not  believe 
in  giving  away  jokes  for  which  coin  of  the  realm  is  usually 
paid. 

I  presented  my  "  story  "  to  him  and  tried  to  make  him 
talk  about  it,  but  he  looked  glum  and  stared  stonily  into 
the  empty  fire-grate. 

"  Really,"  he  began,  at  length,  "  I  can't  think  of  any- 
thing to  say.  Can  you  ?  If  you  can  think  of  something- 
very  clever,  put  it  in  your  article  and  say  I  said  it. 
Yes,  do  say  I  said  it.  But,  of  course,  it  must  be  very 
clever." 

And  he  lapsed  into  a  long,  depressed  silence.  I  was 
very  glad  when  a  friend  of  his  popped  his  head  into  the 


142  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

room  and  shouted  :   "  What  about  that  game  of  bridge  ?  " 
I  rose  hastily  and  escaped. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  picturesque  figure 
than  R.  B.  Cunninghame  Graham.  I  always  picture  him 
sitting  on  a  bare-backed  Mexican  steed,  his  shirt  open  at 
the  throat,  a  long  whip  in  one  hand,  a  lasso  in  the  other, 
his  eyes,  like  Blake's  tiger,  burning  bright,  his  boots 
fantastically  spurred,  his  hat  flapping  in  the  wind,  and 
his  steed  galloping  ventre  a  terre.  In  South  and  Central 
America,  no  doubt,  he  does  run  wild,  but  in  London  of  late 
years  he  has  always  been  most  respectable.  And  yet 
even  West  End  respectability  cannot  kill  his  picturesque- 
ness.  He  has  a  shining  mind,  and  everything  he  says  is 
youthful  and  spirited. 

Most  of  his  literary  enthusiasms  are  for  the  younger — 
the  youngest — generation,  but  as  his  mind  is  essentially 
uncritical  and  impulsive,  his  judgments  are  not  very 
trustworthy.  I  remember  his  praising  unreservedly  a 
young  alleged  poet  who  in  recent  years  has  made  himself 
known  by  his  scholarship  and  impudence,  and,  as  far  as 
I  could  gather,  it  was  chiefly  his  impudence  that  had 
attracted  Cunninghame  Graham. 


CHAPTER  XII 
MUSICAL  CRITICS 

NOT  until  quite  recently  has  musical  criticism  been 
taken  seriously  either  by  the  London  or  pro- 
vincial Press.  In  the  old  days  of  the  sixties, 
when  Wagner  came  to  London  (I  am  writing  many  miles 
away  from  books,  but  surely  it  was  in  the  sixties  that 
Wagner  visited  us  ?),  there  was  not  a  single  open-minded 
musical  critic  on  the  British  Press.  J.  W.  Davison,  the 
very  powerful  Times  critic,  was  not  only  a  fool,  but,  what 
is  much  more  dangerous,  he  was  a  learned  fool.  He 
treated  Wagner  shamefully,  and  he  did  more  than  his 
share  to  bring  our  country  into  musical  disrepute  among 
the  cultured  men  of  other  nations.  Joseph  Bennett,  of 
The  Daily  Telegraph,  was  a  fluent  writer  who  contrived  to 
say  less  in  a  full  column  than  a  man  like  Ernest  Newman 
or  R.  A.  Streatfeild  or  Samuel  Langford  can  say  in  a  couple 
of  lines.  He  footled  gaily  for  many  years,  wielded 
enormous  power,  aud  did  nothing  whatever  to  advance 
the  cause  of  music  in  England. 

As  a  commercial  asset,  Joseph  Bennett  must  have  been 
invaluable  to  the  proprietors  of  The  Daily  Telegraph. 
For,  like  Davison,  he  had  great  influence.  People  read 
him.  Even  in  my  own  time,  when  an  important  new  work 
was  produced,  we  used  to  question  each  other  :  '  What 
does  Old  Joe  say  ? "  And,  most  unfortunately,  it 
mattered  a  great  deal  what  Old  Joe  did  say,  though 
anyone  who  knew  much  about  music  was  very  well  aware 
that  nine  times  out  of  ten  Bennett  would  be  wrong.  If 
he  damned  a  work — well,  that  work  was  damned.     No 

143 


144  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

musical  critic  to-day  wields  such  power  as  his,  though 
there  are  at  least  a  score  of  writers  on  music  who  have  ten 
times  his  gifts.  His  present  successor,  for  example,  Mr 
Robin  Legge,  is  incomparably  a  finer  musician,  a  much 
more  open-minded  man,  and  a  student  of  infinitely  more 
culture,  than  Bennett.  Yet  his  influence,  I  imagine,  is 
not  so  great  as  that  of  his  predecessor.  One  cannot  say 
that  Bennett  stooped  to  his  public,  for  Bennett  could  not 
stoop  ;  if  he  had  stooped,  he  would  have  disappeared 
altogether.  No  :  he  was  the  public  :  the  people  :  the 
common  people.  He  had  the  point  of  view  of  the  man  in 
the  back  street. 

But  to-day  things  are  changed.  The  musical  critic  is 
no  longer  primarily  a  raconteur,  a  gossiper,  a  chatterer. 
As  a  rule,  he  is  a  man  of  culture,  of  experience,  of  solid 
musical  attainments.  He  earns  little  —  anything  from 
one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  to  five  hundred  pounds  a 
year,  though,  no  doubt,  in  very  rare  instances,  he  may  be 
paid  more  than  the  latter  figure.  Musical  criticism,  there- 
fore, is  not  a  profession  that  seduces  the  ambitious  man, 
for  the  ambitious  man  of  materialistic  views  may  more 
easily  earn  three  times  what  the  Press  has  to  offer  him 
by  selling  imitation  jewellery  or  doing  anything  else  that 
money-making  people  do.  When  E.  A.  Baughan,  now 
dramatic  critic  of  The  Daily  News,  was  editing  The  Musical 
Standard  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  he  wrote  me  a  very 
earnest  letter  beseeching  me  not  to  become  a  musical 
critic  on  account  of  the  payment  being  so  meagre.  '  If 
you  have  a  desk,  stick  to  it ;  if  you  are  a  commercial 
traveller,  remain  a  commercial  traveller  "  was  his  advice 
in  essence.  But  I  would  rather  be  a  musical  critic  on  one 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a  year  than  a  stockbroker  earn- 
ing fifteen  hundred  pounds.  I  love  money,  but  I  love 
music  and  journalism  more,  and  the  three  years  I  spent  in 
Manchester  with  an  income  of  three  hundred  pounds 
were  full   of  happiness,  brimful  of  great  days  when  I 


MUSICAL  CRITICS  145 

felt  my  mind  growing  and  my  spirit  taking  unto  itself 
wings. 

E.  A.  Baughan  is  not,  I  think,  a  musician  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  word,  nor  does  he  claim  to  be,  but  I  imagine 
that,  being  musical  and  having  the  itch  for  writing,  he 
took  the  first  journalistic  work  that  offered  itself.  That 
work  was  the  editing  of  The  Musical  Standard.  Subse- 
quently he  went  to  The  Morning  Leader  as  musical  critic, 
and  then  to  The  Daily  News  as  dramatic  critic.  He  is  sane, 
level-headed,  honest,  but  not  conspicuously  brilliant.  His 
musical  work,  judged  by  a  high  standard,  was  poor.  He 
had  not  sufficient  knowledge  to  guide  him  to  a  right 
judgment  when  faced  by  a  new  problem.  Hugo  Wolf  was 
such  a  problem,  and  if  ever  Baughan  reads  now  what  he 
wrote  about  Hugo  Wolf  some  fifteen  years  ago,  he  must, 
I  imagine,  tingle  with  shame  to  the  tips  of  his  toes. 

As  a  dramatic  critic  he  has  secured  an  honourable  and 
enviable  position.  I  used  to  meet  him  very  frequently  at 
first  nights,  and  always  thought  him  a  trifle  blase  and 
almost  wholly  devoid  of  imagination,  subtlety  and  true 
artistic  feeling.  He  has  not  the  artist's  attitude  towards 
life,  and  he  would  probably  bring  an  action  for  slander 
against  you  if  you  said  he  had. 

I  was  never  introduced  to  C.  L.  Graves,  the  musical 
critic  of  The  Spectator  and  the  well-known  humorous 
writer,  but  on  one  occasion  I  sat  next  to  him  at  a  very 
important  concert,  and  in  conversation  found  him  an 
extremely  courteous  but  rather  baffled  man.  His  know- 
ledge of  music  is  that  of  the  cultured  amateur.  His  mind 
but  grudgingly  admits  "  advanced  "  work,  and  I,  as  a 
modern,  regret  that  an  intellect  so  charming,  so  gracious, 
so  able,  should  be  even  occasionally  occupied  in  passing 
judgment  on  work  that  has  its  being  entirely  outside  his 
mental  horizon.  But  I  doubt  very  much  if  The  Spectator 
has  any  influence  on  the  musical  life  of  London,  though  I 

K 


146  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

imagine  that  Dr  Brewer,  Mr  T.  H.  Noble,  Sir  Hubert 
Parry,  Sir  Charles  V.  Stanford  and  Sir  Alexander 
Mackenzie  read  Mr  Graves  with  regularity  and  approval. 

•  ••••••• 

But  the  man  whom  all  of  us  who  write  about  music 
honour  most  of  all  is  Ernest  Newman,  of  The  Birmingham 
Daily  Post.  Here  we  have  a  first-rate  intellect  functioning 
with  absolute  sureness  and  with  almost  fierce  rapidity. 
As  a  scholar,  no  man  is  better  equipped  ;  as  a  writer,  he 
ranks  with  the  highest ;  for  fearlessness  and  inflexible 
intellectual  honesty,  he  has  no  equal.  His  books  on 
Wagner  and  Hugo  Wolf  and  the  volume  entitled  Musical 
Studies  are  head  and  shoulders  above  any  volumes  of 
musical  criticism  ever  published  in  our  language.  But 
though  his  knowledge  of  music  is  encyclopaedic,  music  is 
but  one  of  many  subjects  upon  which  he  is  an  authority. 
Uuder  another  name  he  has  published  a  volume  on  phil- 
osophy which,  on  its  appearance,  created  something  like 
a  sensation  ;  unfortunately,  this  book  ceased  to  be  procur- 
able within  a  few  weeks  of  its  publication.  Poetry, 
French  and  German  literature,  sociology  and  psychology 
are  but  a  few  of  the  subjects  upon  which  he  is  as  well 
qualified  to  write  as  he  is  on  music. 

Why  does  he  hide  himself  in  Birmingham  ?  Well,  if 
you  are  a  musical  critic  in  London,  it  is  impossible  to  do 
any  solid  work.  All  day  and  almost  every  day  you  are  at 
concerts  and  operas,  and  you  are  sadly  in  danger  of  becom- 
ing a  mere  reporter.  Newman's  post  in  Birmingham 
leaves  him  some  leisure  in  which  to  write  more  important 
work. 

I  never  think  of  Newman  without  wondering  if  ever  he 
will  be  given  the  chance  to  achieve  the  work  that  is  nearest 
his  heart.  That  work  is  a  full  and  complete  history  of 
music.  For  this  task  he  is  intellectually  well  equipped, 
but  the  labour  in  which  it  would  involve  him  calls  for 
years  of  leisure.     Time  and  again  he  has  planned  work — 


MUSICAL  CRITICS  147 

notably,  a  book  on  Montaigne — which,  for  lack  of  leisure, 
he  has  been  compelled  to  abandon.  He  was  made  for 
finer  things  than  newspaper  work,  and  though  he  has  made 
an  indelible  impression  on  musical  thought  in  this  and 
other  countries,  his  life  will  be  largely  wasted  if  the  latter 
half  of  it  has  to  be  spent  in  writing  daily  criticism  and 
occasional  articles. 

Newman's  psychology  is  peculiarly  complex.  Though 
there  is  a  vein  of  cruelty  in  him,  he  is  yet  sensitive  to  the 
suffering  of  other  people.  I  was  with  him  on  one  occasion 
when  Bantock  told  him  that  a  certain  enemy  of  his  (New- 
man's) had  just  died.  The  effect  of  this  news  on  Newman 
was  to  me  most  unexpected.  He  started  a  little.  "  Good 
God  !  "  he  said  ;  '  poor,  poor  devil."  And  for  the  rest 
of  the  evening  he  sat  gloomy  and  silent.  The  thought  of 
death  is  intolerable  to  him.  His  repulsion  from  it  is  as 
much  physical  as  nervous.  Though,  on  occasion,  a  stern 
and  relentless  critic,  he  reacts  morbidly  to  criticism  of 
himself.  He  is  highly  strung,  imaginative,  rationalistic  ; 
he  believes  little  and  trusts  not  at  all,  loves  intensely  and 
hates  bitterly.  Vain  he  is,  also,  and  he  clings  almost 
despairingly  to  what  remains  of  his  youth. 

It  is  some  few  years  since  I  saw  Newman  in  close 
intimacy,  but  when  he  was  on  the  staff  of  The  Manchester 
Guardian  and,  later  on,  when  he  removed  to  Birmingham, 
I  was  at  his  house  very  frequently,  and  a  very  small  circle 
of  friends  used  to  pass  long  evenings  in  delicious  fooling. 
In  those  days  Newman  could  throw  off  twenty-five  years 
of  his  age  and  become  a  high-spirited  and  impish  boy.  I 
remember  one  night  when,  a  macabre  mood  or,  rather, 
a  mood  of  extravagantly  high  spirits  having  descended 
upon  us,  one  of  our  company,  a  lady,  simulated  sudden 
illness  and  death.  We  dressed  her  in  a  shroud,  placed 
pennies  on  her  eyes  and  candles  at  her  head  and  feet. 
But  in  the  middle  of  this  foolery,  Newman  disappeared, 
and  when  it  was  all  over  and  he  had  returned,  he  was  in  a 


148  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

sombre  mood.  It  was  not  because  we  had  trifled  with  a 
terrible  fact  in  life  that  he  was  disturbed  and  distrait,  but 
because  we  had  unwittingly  cut  into  his  shrinking  mind 
and  hurt  it  by  reminding  him  of  something  he  would  fain 
forget.  Insanity  repelled  him  in  the  same  violent  manner, 
and  all  who  knew  him  intimately  when  he  was  writing  his 
book  on  Hugo  Wolf  will  .remember  that  Wolf's  warped 
and  poisoned  psychology  obsessed  and  dominated  him. 

But  often  Newman  would  spend  an  evening  in  playing 
modern  songs  to  us — Bantock's  FerishtaJi's  Fancies, 
Wolf's  Morike  Lieder,  and  so  on.  I  can  see  him  now  as, 
his  clever,  rather  saturnine  face  abundantly  alive,  he 
described  Richard  Strauss's  Ein  Heldenleben,  telling  us 
how  the  music  of  the  harps  stained  the  texture  of  the  music 
in  a  magical  way,  like  one  flinging  wine  on  some  secretly 
coloured  fabric.  Those  evenings  are  to  me  among  the 
most  valued  of  my  life.  I  remember  how  my  wife  and  I 
used  to  walk  home  under  a  long  avenue  of  trees  very  late 
in  the  spring  nights,  the  gummy  smell  of  buds  in  our 
nostrils,  Newman's  voice  still  in  our  ears,  and  our  minds 
fermenting  deliciously  with  a  kind  of  happiness  we  had 
not  experienced  before. 

Those  days  are  gone  for  ever  :  days  of  a  recovered 
youth  ;  evenings  that  were  romantic  just  because  they 
were  evenings  ;  nights  when,  in  silence,  one  dreamed  long 
and  long,  the  body  sunk  deep  in  unconsciousness,  the  soul 
ranging  and  mounting  and,  in  the  morning,  returning  to 
its  home  subtly  changed  and  infinitely  refreshed.  .  .  . 
Newman  opened  for  me  a  world  which,  but  for  him,  I 
do  not  think  I  ever  should  have  beheld  ;  nor,  indeed, 
should  I  ever  have  been  aware  of  that  world's  existence. 

•  •••••  •* 

I  have  written  of  Samuel  Langford  elsewhere  in  this 
book,  and  I  have  little  to  add  here.  He  succeeded  New- 
man on  The  Manchester  Guardian,  and  I  recall  the  curiosity 
with  which  many  of  us  read  his  first  articles,  fearing  that 


MUSICAL  CRITICS  149 

anything  he  might  write  must  of  necessity  fall  so  far  below 
Newman's  high  standard  as  to  be  unreadable.  We  were 
soon  reassured.  Langford  and  Newman  have  little  in 
common,  and  there  is  no  basis  upon  which  one  can 
compare  them.  And,  at  first,  Langford  had  to  feel  his 
way,  to  master  his  metier,  to  acquire  some  of  his  literary 
technique.  .  .  . 

Our  respective  newspaper  offices  were  situated  near 
each  other,  and  on  our  way  from  the  Free  Trade  Hall  he 
used  often  to  persuade  me  to  drink  with  him  before  we 
began  our  work.  '  We  shall  do  each  other  good,"  he 
would  say.  And  his  short,  ungainly  figure,  with  its  thick 
neck  carrying  a  nobly-shaped  head,  would  make  its  way  to 
the  bar  where,  placing  a  pile  of  music  on  the  counter,  he 
would  turn  to  me  and  talk,  both  of  us  forgetting  to  order 
our  drinks,  and  neither  of  us  caring  for  the  lateness  of  the 
hour.  .  .  .  Next  morning,  he  would  frequently  come 
round  to  my  house  immediately  after  breakfast,  look  in 
at  the  window  of  my  study,  and  wave  a  newspaper  in  the 
air.  I  was  always  deep  in  work,  for  at  that  time  I  re- 
viewed eight  or  ten  books  every  week,  but  I  remember  no 
occasion  on  which  I  did  not  welcome  him  most  gladly. 
And  sometimes  I  would  spend  an  afternoon  in  his  great 
garden,  worshipping  flowers,  aud  watch  him  as,  with 
fumbling  hands,  he  turned  the  face  of  a  blossom  to  the  sky 
and  looked  at  it  with  I  know  not  what  thoughts.  I  know 
nothing  of  horticulture,  but  Langford  knows  everything, 
and  often  he  would  talk,  more  to  himself  than  to  me,  about 
the  deep  mysteries  of  his  science.  And,  saying  farewell  at 
the  little  gate,  he  would  sometimes  crush  into  my  arms 
a  large  sheaf  of  coloured  leaves  and  flowers,  wave  an 
awkward  hand,  and  shamble  back  to  his  low-built, 
picturesque  house  set  deep  in  blooms.  Though  twenty 
years  my  senior,  neither  he  nor  I  felt  the  long  spell  of 
years  lying  between  us.  And  sometimes  I  am  tempted 
to  go  back  to  Manchester  to  renew  a  friendship  for  the 


150  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

loss  of  which  all  the  great  happiness  that  London  has 
brought  me  has,  it  seems  at  times,  been  but  inadequate 
compensation. 

•  •••••  •  • 

During  my  three  years  as  musical  critic  on  The  Man- 
chester Courier  I  had  some  curious  experiences,  and  to  me 
the  most  curious  of  them  all  was  the  persistent  manner  in 
which  attempts  were  made  by  people  in  Berlin  to  enlist 
my  sympathies  on  behalf  of  an  extremely  able  musician, 
Oskar  Fried.  It  almost  seemed  to  me  that  a  secret  society 
existed  in  Germany  for  the  sole  purpose  of  getting  Oskar 
Fried  a  job  in  England.  Letters  written  in  English  came 
to  me  from  total  strangers,  informing  me  at  great  length 
and  with  stupid  tautology  that  Fried  was  the  one  hope  of 
musical  Young  Germany.  He  had  Ideals ;  he  was  a 
Leader  ;  he  had  the  Prophetic  Vision  ;  he  was  the  man 
who  was  going  to  promote  and  lead  a  new  Romantic 
Movement.  "  Very  good,"  said  I  to  myself,  "  but  what 
on  earth  has  all  this  to  do  with  me  ?  " 

I  was  not  long  in  finding  out.  A  young  Englishman 
resident  in  Berlin,  and  obviously  deeply  saturated  with 
the  German  spirit,  wrote  to  me  to  say  that,  in  his  opinion, 
Fried  was  the  only  man  in  Europe  to  fill  the  post  that 
Dr  Richter  had  vacated  as  conductor  of  the  Halle  Concerts 
Society  in  Manchester.  The  letter  arrived  at  a  time  when 
various  musicians  were  being,  as  it  were,  "  tried  "  as  con- 
ductors of  the  Halle  Concerts,  and  my  unknown  corre- 
spondent was  anxious  that  Fried  should  be  invited  to 
conduct  one  or  two  concerts.  To  this  letter  I  sent  a  polite 
but  non-committal  reply.  I  knew  Oskar  Fried's  name 
just  as  I  knew  the  names  of  a  dozen  pushing  German 
conductors  ;  but  I  knew  no  more.  My  persistent  corre- 
spondent, to  whom  I  will  give  the  name  of  Purvis,  wrote 
again,  sending  me  a  typewritten  copy  of  a  book  he  had 
written  on  his  friend.  It  was  a  highfalutin  document  of 
idolatry.   Fried  was  his  idol,  and  Purvis  gushed  and  gushed 


MUSICAL  CRITICS  151 

and  gushed  again.  But  the  whole  thing  was  done  with 
truly  Germanic  thoroughness.  I  felt  that  I  was  being 
"'  got  at,"  and  though  I  resented  it,  I  was  greatly  amused. 
I  led  him  on.  I  was  anxious  to  see  this  gushing  disciple, 
this  seeming  advertising  agent,  this,  as  it  appeared  to  me, 
wholly  Germanised  Englishman.  So  I  replied  to  him  a 
second  time,  and  one  evening  he  called  upon  me.  He 
was  a  boy  of  twenty-one  with  a  beard,  a  manner  that  was 
intended  to  be  ingratiating  but  was  intolerably  insolent, 
and  a  self-assurance  truly  Napoleonic.  He  tickled  me 
hugely  and,  as  I  have  more  than  a  grain  of  malice  in  me,  I 
opened  out  to  him,  flattered  him  heavily,  and  talked  music 
with  him.  But,  though  he  loved  the  flattery,  he  was  level- 
headed enough  to  stick  to  his  point — that  I  should  do  all 
in  my  power  to  secure  for  Oskar  Fried  the  Halle  conductor- 
ship.  And  he  ended  the  interview  with  the  astonishing 
announcement  that  Fried  had  already  been  engaged  by 
the  Halle  Concerts  Society  to  conduct  two  of  their  concerts. 

By  what  devious  and  subterranean  ways  this  was 
achieved,  I  do  not  know,  but  I  have  no  doubt  that  scores 
of  influential  Germans  in  Manchester  were  approached  in 
a  similar  way  to  what  I  was. 

Oskar  Fried,  with  his  idolatrous  lackey,  came  uninvited 
to  my  house.  They  arrived  at  ten  and  left  at  six.  I  found 
Fried  a  very  remarkable  man — magnetic,  of  forceful 
personality,  but  with  the  manners  and  point  of  view  of  a 
gutter-snipe.  He  asked  me  point-blank  what  I  could  do 
for  him. 

"  In  what  way  ?  "  I  asked  him,  through  Purvis,  our 
interpreter. 

"  It  is  obvious  in  what  way,"  returned  Purvis,  without 
passing  on  the  question  to  Fried. 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  I  have  already  written  about  Fried  in 
the  papers.  And,  really,  I  have  no  influence.  I  am  not 
very  popular  with  the  Halle  Concerts  Society  people,  and 
if  I  were  to  begin  to  recommend  Fried  .  .  .  But,  in  any 


152  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

case,  I  have  not  yet  heard  your  friend  conduct.  It  is 
impossible  for  me  to  recommend  a  man  of  whose  talents 
I  know  nothing  save  by  hearsay.  You  see  that,  don't 
you  ?  " 

"  I'm  afraid  I  don't,"  said  Purvis.  "  You  are  a  musical 
critic  in  Manchester,  whilst  I  am  a  musical  critic  in  Berlin, 
and  I  tell  you  that  Fried  is  the  man  you  want  here. 
Surely  that  is  enough  ?  You  must  take  it  from  me.  / 
say  it." 

I  smiled  and,  glancing  at  Fried,  watched  his  thin,  eager 
face,  with  its  peering  eyes  which  looked  inquiringly  first  at 
Purvis  and  then  at  me. 

Purvis  came  next  day  and  the  day  after  that,  and  I 
began  to  wonder  in  precisely  what  relation  he  stood  to 
Fried.  When  together,  they  seemed  to  be  just  business 
friends,  and  it  occurred  to  me  that  the  long  typewritten 
Life  of  Fried  that  Purvis  had  written  was  merely  a  gigantic 
piece  of  bluff.  Finally,  I  decided  to  cut  both  men  adrift 
altogether,  and  the  next  time  Purvis  called  I  was  out. 

When  I  heard  Fried  conduct,  I  at  once  recognised  his 
great  powers  :  he  had  undoubted  genius.  But  he  was 
never  invited  to  become  the  permanent  conductor  of  the 
Halle  Concerts  Society.  Perchance  his  table  manners 
were  adversely  reported  upon  by  Dr  Brodsky,  or  Mr 
Gustave  Behrens,  or  the  discreet  and  reserved  Mr  Forsyth. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
MANCHESTER  PEOPLE 

IF  there  is  one  thing  more  than  another  that  the 
ordinary  person  cannot  endure,  it  is  to  hear  a  man 
from  Manchester  praising  his  own  city.  Somebody 
from  Leeds  may  tell  him  how  beautiful  a  town  Leeds  is, 
and  he  will  not  turn  a  hair  ;  he  will  listen  unruffled  to  a 
Liverpudlian  discoursing  on  the  peculiar  glories  of  the 
great  city  on  the  Mersey  ;  but  if  the  man  from  Manchester 
Avishes  to  be  tolerated,  he  must  never  let  fall  a  word  in 
praise  of  the  place  that  witnessed  his  astounding  birth. 
Why  this  is  so,  I  cannot  explain.  I  merely  record  the 
fact. 

So,  for  the  moment,  I  will  not  praise  Manchester.  I 
will  go  even  farther  than  that.  I  will  agree  with  you  that 
it  rains  there  every  day,  that  it  is  the  ugliest  city  in 
Britain,  that  it  is  cocksure  and  conceited,  that  its  politics 
are  damnable,  that  its  free  trade  principles  are  loathsome, 
and  that  its  public  men  are  aitchless  and  gross.  I  will, 
I  say,  agree  to  all  this.  You  may  say  anything  dis- 
agreeable you  like  about  Manchester,  and  I  shall  not  care. 
Nevertheless,  if  I  could  not  live  in  London,  Manchester 
is  the  city  to  which  I  would  go.  I  have  stayed  in  Athens, 
and  Athens  is  a  marvellous  city  ;  I  know  my  Paris,  and 
Paris  is  not  without  fascination  ;  I  have  been  to  Cairo, 
and  the  bazaars  of  Cairo  seemed  to  me  so  wonderful  that 
I  held  my  breath  as  I  passed  through  them  ;  I  know 
Antwerp  and  some  of  the  half-dead  cities  of  Belgium,  and 
in  Bruges  I  have  felt  as  decadent  as  any  nasty  Belgian 
poet.     But  these  places  are  not  Manchester.     They  are 

153 


154  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

not  so  glorious  as  Manchester,  not  so  vital,  not  so  romantic, 
not  so  adventurous.  .  .  .  But  already  I  have  broken  my 
word  :  I  have  begun  to  praise  Manchester  in  my  second 
paragraph.     Let  me  begin  a  third. 

It  might  be  thought  that  the  centre  of  Manchester's 
intellectual  life  is  the  University,  but  this  is  not  so.  Nor 
is  it  the  Cathedral,  nor  the  big  technical  schools,  nor  yet 
the  Gaiety  Theatre.  These  things  count,  but  none  of 
them  precisely  radiates  intellectual  energy.  You  do  not 
(unless  you  wish  to  be  disappointed)  go  to  the  Bishop  for 
ideas,  or  to  the  man  of  business  for  culture,  nor  to  Miss 
Horniman  for  a  wide  and  generous  view  of  life.  For 
these  things,  and  for  many  other  things  besides,  you  go 
to  The  Manchester  Guardian.  In  The  Daily  Mail  Year 
Book,  against  the  entry  Manchester  Guardian,  you  will 
find  these  words  :  "  The  best  newspaper  in  the  world." 
Now,  you  would  imagine  that  if  The  Daily  Mail  really 
believed  that,  The  Daily  Mail  would  strain  every  nerve 
to  be  as  like  The  Manchester  Guardian  as  possible.  But 
Lord  Northcliffe  knows  better  than  that.  He  knows,  we 
all  know,  that  the  best  newspaper  in  the  world  is  not 
going  to  be  the  best  seller  in  the  world.  The  word  "  best," 
when  applied  to  a  newspaper,  does  not  signify  a  newspaper 
that  shrieks  louder  than  any  other  newspaper,  that  has 
the  greatest  number  of  "  stunts,"  that  lays  reputations 
low  in  the  dust,  that  holds  Cabinet  Ministers  in  the  hollow 
of  its  hand.  It  signifies,  among  other  things,  a  paper 
whose  editor  will  not  sacrifice  a  single  ideal  in  order  to 
increase  his  circulation,  who  has  the  power  of  infusing  his 
staff  with  his  own  enthusiasms,  and  who  regards  the  arts 
as  a  necessary  part  of  a  decent  human  existence. 

The  Daily  Mail  once  upon  a  time  compelled  the  whole 
of  the  British  Isles  to  start  growing  sweet-peas.  That 
is  one  kind  of  power.  That  is  the  kind  of  power  that  The 
Manchester  Guardian  does  not  possess. 

Yet,  I  ask  you,  is  there  a  more  irritating  newspaper 


MANCHESTER  PEOPLE  155 

in  the  whole  of  Christendom  than  The  Manchester 
Guardian  ?  How  many  times  have  we  not  all  thrown  it 
down  in  disgust  and  vowed  never  to  read  it  again,  only 
to  buy  it  faithfully  next  morning  ?  It  would  sometimes 
appear  that  every  crank  in  England  is  busily  engaged  in 
airing  his  crazy  views  in  its  correspondence  columns. 
It  would  sometimes  appear  that  the  three  greatest  high- 
brows in  the  country  had  laid  their  heads  together  to 
write  the  leading  article.  It  would  sometimes  appear 
that  conscientious  objectors  were  really  the  only  generous, 
manly  and  heroic  people  left  in  this  mad  world. 

•  ••••  •  •• 

Let  me  tell  you  a  true  story  of  a  man  who  for  years  has 
been,  and  still  is,  on  the  staff  of  The  Manchester  Guardian. 
I  tell  this  strange  story,  partly  because  it  is  strange, 
and  partly  because  it  illustrates  so  finely  the  kind  of 
reverence  that  so  many  citizens  of  Manchester  have  for 
the  best  paper  in  the  world. 

Some  thirty  years  ago  a  male  child  was  born  to  a  worthy 
and  not  unprosperous  man  in  Manchester.  Now  this  man 
had  one  faith,  one  gospel,  one  ambition.  His  faith  was 
of  the  Liberal  persuasion.  (Why,  may  I  ask  in  passing, 
do  people  refer  to  Jews  as  men  and  women  of  the  Jewish 
"  persuasion  "  ?  Can  a  man,  indeed,  be  persuaded  to 
Jewry  ?)  But  to  resume.  His  faith,  as  I  said,  was 
Liberal,  his  gospel  The  Manchester  Guardian,  his  ambi- 
tion to  have  some  close  connection  with  that  paper. 
Being  unfitted  by  the  nature  of  his  own  talents  to  join 
the  staff,  he  resolved  that  in  the  fullness  of  time  that 
distinction  should  belong  to  his  son.  So  he  wrote  to 
the  editor,  thus  : 

Sir, — I  have  the  honour  to  inform  you  that  last  night 
my  wife  gave  birth  to  a  son.  It  is  my  ambition  that,  when 
his  intellect  is  ripe  and  his  powers  mature,  he  shall  be 
chosen  by  you  as  a  member  of  your  staff.     His  education, 


156  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

his  whole  upbringing,  shall  be  directed  to  that  end. 
shall  report  to  you  his  progress  from  time  to  time. 
I  have  the  honour  to  be,  sir,  your"  obedient  t  ervant, 


I  have  not  this  letter  before  me  ;  indeed,  I  have  never 
seen  it.  But  I  am  assured  it  was  couched  in  those  or 
similar  terms. 

Years  passed.  Harry — we  will  call  him  Harry — sur- 
vived the  perils  of  babyhood  and  was  sent  to  a  school  for 
the  sons  of  gentlemen,  and  the  editor  was  duly  apprised 
of  the  fact.  Harry  studied  hard,  for  his  ambition  was 
even  that  of  his  father.  Harry  took  scholarships,  Harry 
had  a  private  tutor,  and,  eventually,  Harry  went  to  the 
'varsity.  In  the  meantime,  reports  passed  at  regular 
intervals  from  Harry's  father  to  the  editor  of  The 
Manchester  Guardian,  who  now,  as  nurses  say,  began  to 
sit  up  and  take  notice.  He  desired  to  meet  Harry.  He 
did  meet  him.  Harry  took  an  honours  degree,  came  back 
to  Manchester,  and  was  duly  installed  among  the  blessed, 
where  he  still  is.  Harry's  dream,  Harry's  father's  dream, 
is  fulfilled.  But  are  those  reports,  I  wonder,  still  being 
written.     As,  for  example  : 

Sir, — I  have  the  honour  to  inform  you  that  my  son, 
Harold,  contemplates  marriage.  It  has  always  appeared 
to  me  that  the  married  state  is  peculiarly  useful  in 
developing  .  .  . 

•  •••  •  ••• 

But  not  all  the  members  of  The  Manchester  Guardian 
staff  are  'varsity  men  :  for  which,  indeed,  one  may  be 
thankful.  The  men  of  letters  whom  they  admire  most — 
Bernard  Shaw,  H.  G.  Wells,  Joseph  Conrad  and  Arnold 
Bennett — never  even  dimly  espied  the  towers  and  spires 
of  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  But  the  paper  has  the  manner 
of  Oxford,  though  not  Oxford's  intellectual  outlook. 


MANCHESTER  PEOPLE  157 

For  myself,  I  have  never  been  on  the  staff  of  this  paper, 
though  I  have  written  scores  of  articles  for  its  com- 
mercial pages.  Some  of  the  most  distinguished  intellects 
in  the  country  write  for  it  regularly — Allan  Monkhouse, 
whose  play,  Mary  Broome,  has  not  been  and  scarcely  can 
be  sufficiently  praised  ;  C.  E.  Montague,  now  in  the  Army  ; 
Professor  C.  H.  Herford,  whose  scholarship  is  in  excess 
of  his  human  feeling  ;  Samuel  Langford,  whom  I  have 
dealt  with  elsewhere  in  this  book  ;  J.  E.  Agate,  whose 
fastidious  style  is  a  pure  delight.  Indeed,  nearly  every 
man  who  can  write  and  who  has  something  definitely 
new  to  say  will  find  the  columns  of  this  paper  open  to 
him. 

The  drawback  to  social  life  in  Manchester  is  that  there 
is  no  central  meeting-place  where  kindred  spirits  can  for- 
gather. It  is  true,  there  is  the  Arts  Club,  but  when  you 
have  said  the  Arts  Club  is  there,  you  have  said  all  that  it  is 
necessary  to  say  about  the  Arts  Club.  It  is  true,  also, 
that  if  you  stroll  into  the  American  bar  of  the  Midland 
Hotel  at  almost  any  hour  of  the  day,  you  are  pretty  sure 
to  meet  someone  amusing  ;  but  you  really  can't  make 
music,  or  rehearse  plays,  or  play  the  fool  (at  least,  not  to 
any  great  extent)  in  an  American  bar.  The  consequence 
of  this  lack  of  a  good  democratic  club  is  that  all  kinds 
of  little  coteries  are  formed,  and  it  is  about  one  of  these 
little  coteries  that  I  wish  to  tell  you. 

Of  course,  Manchester  is  not  London.  You  know  that. 
In  London,  if  you  don't  like  one  play,  you  can  go  to 
another.  If  the  music  that  Sir  Henry  J.  Wood  gives  you 
is  not  to  your  taste,  you  can  go  to  hear  Mr  Landon  Ronald, 
or  (if  truly  desperate)  join  the  Philharmonic  Society. 
But  in  Manchester  this  is  not  so.  Ycu  have  either  to  like 
the  music  or  do  without  it.  Well,  some  years  ago  we 
didn't  like  it,  and  Jack  Kahane,  talking  to  me  one  day  in 
a  mood  of  disgust,  casually  remarked  : 


158  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

"  I'm  going  to  kick  Richter  out  of  Manchester.  We've 
had  enough  of  him." 

With  Kahane,  to  think  is  to  act,  and  within  a  week  he 
had  formed  the  Manchester  Musical  Society  and  begun  a 
Press  campaign  against  the  famous  old  conductor.  This 
Society  was  Kahane's  new  toy,  and  he  played  with  it  to 
some  purpose.  We  talked  a  great  deal,  gave  innumerable 
concerts,  hired  lecturers,  wrote  articles,  and  held  enor- 
mously thrilling  committee  meetings.  Our  programmes 
consisted  almost  exclusively  of  new  and  very  "  modern  " 
music,  just  the  kind  of  music  that  the  guarantors  of  the 
Halle  Concerts  Society  detested.  We  were  all  for  the 
new  spirit  in  music,  and  some  of  us  in  our  enthusiasm 
liked  new  music  just  because  it  was  new.  In  three 
months  Richter  began  to  totter  on  his  throne  and,  later 
on,  he  resigned  his  post,  and  now  Sir  Thomas  Beecham 
most  fitly  reigns  in  his  stead. 

This  little  Society  was  extremely  typical  of  Manchester. 
It  was  typical  because  it  was  enthusiastic,  because  every 
member  of  it  worked  hard  for  no  monetary  reward,  and 
because  it  had  a  definite  object  in  view  and  achieved  that 
object.  Above  all,  it  was  young  ;  the  spirit  of  it  was 
young.  I  have  never  found  in  London  a  band  of  young 
men  and  women  putting  their  noses  to  ,the  grindstone 
for  months  on  end  with  the  sole  object  of  achieving  an 
artistic  ideal.  People  in  London  exploit  art,  but  they  do 
not  work  at  art  for  art's  sake.  Manchester  is  England's 
musical  metropolis.  Elgar  said  so  ten  years  ago ; 
Beecham  echoed  his  words  the  other  day.  I  claim  for 
Manchester  also  that  the  level  of  culture  is  much  higher 
than  it  is  in  London.  In  proportion  to  its  size  Manchester 
has  during  the  last  fifty  years  given  to  England  more 
writers,  musicians,  politicians,  actors,  business  men, 
reformers  and  social  workers  of  distinction  than  any  other 

city.  .  .  .  But  all  this,  I  think,  is  a  little  offensive 

And  yet  how  difficult  it  is  for  the  stranger  to  understand 


MANCHESTER  PEOPLE  159 

Manchester ! — and  difficult  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
Manchester  loves  being  understood. 

Mr  J.  Nicol  Dunn,  who,  as  editor  of  The  Morning  Post 
and,  later,  of  The  Johannesburg  Star,  did  most  brilliant 
work,  utterly  failed  to  understand  Lancashire  people 
when  he  came  to  edit  The  Manchester  Courier.  I  think  he 
regarded  them  as  a  peculiar  race  of  savages.  '  A  wealthy 
Lancashire  manufacturer,"  he  said  to  me  once,  "  will  ask 
you  to  dinner  and  will  order  a  bumper  of  champagne. 
But  if  you  ask  him  for  a  half-guinea  subscription  for  a 
political  society,  he  will  give  you  a  curt  refusal.  What 
is  to  be  done  with  such  folk  ?  "  Dunn  thought  us  hard 
and  unimaginative,  incapable  of  seeing  in  what  direction 
lay  our  best  interests,  and  utterly  childish  in  our  notions 
of  political  economy. 

"  Cumberland,"  he  said,  unexpectedly,  one  evening,  "  is 
your  father  a  Conservative  ?  " 

"  He  is,"  said  I. 

"  What  paper  does  he  take  ?  " 

"  The  Manchester  Guardian." 

"  I  knew  he  did  !  Of  course  he  would  take  The 
Manchester  Guardian  !  Good  Lord  !  To  what  a  strange 
set  of  people  have  I  come  !  " 

And  he  grunted  and  went  on  with  his  work. 

My  native  town  is  young  and  strenuous  and  guileless. 
Its  vanity  is  the  vanity  of  the  clever  youngster  who  loves 
"  showing  off '  in  his  exuberant  way.  So  young  and 
guileless  is  it  that  it  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to 
deceive  it.  How  easy  it  is  to  deceive  Manchester  is 
illustrated  by  the  case  of  Captain  Schlagintweit,  the 
German  consul  for  some  years  in  that  city. 

Schlagintweit  was  an  enormous  German  whose  mission 
in  life  it  was  to  induce  Manchester  to  believe  that  Germany 
was  our  bosom  friend,  that  Germany's  first  thought  was 
to  help  Great  Britain,  and  that  the  two  peoples  were  so 
closely  akin  in  their  spiritual  aims  that  a  quarrel  between 


160  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

them,  even  a  temporary  misunderstanding,  was  utterly  and 
for  ever  impossible.  As  I  have  said,  he  was  enormous  : 
a  great  man  with  a  fair  round  belly  :  a  man  who  talked  a 
lot  and  ate  a  lot,  and  who,  when  he  talked  even  with  a 
solitary  companion,  spoke  as  though  he  were  addressing 
a  huge  audience.  He  "  bounded  "  beautifully  and  with 
so  much  aplomb  and  zest  that  it  seemed  right  he  should 
bound  and  do  nothing  else. 

I  met  him  everywhere— in  the  Press  Club,  at  concerts, 
at  the  Schiller  Anstalt,  in  restaurants  ;  and  nine  times  out 
of  ten  he  was  in  the  company  either  of  a  journalist,  a 
member  of  the  City  Council,  or  a  Member  of  Parliament. 
I  never  knew  any  man  who  worked  so  hard  for  his  country 
as  he  did.  He  distilled  sweet  poison  into  our  ears  and  we 
believed  him  every  time. 

I  must  confess  I  felt  rather  flattered  by  the  way  in 
which  he  constantly  sought  my  company.  I  thought 
for  a  long  time  that  he  loved  me  for  my  own  sweet  sake, 
and  it  was  not  until  the,  for  him,  tragic  denouement  came 
that  I  realised  that  it  was  because  I  was  a  journalist,  and 
for  that  reason  alone,  he  dined  and  wined  me  and  talked 
discreetly  of  Germany's  heartache  for  Great  Britain.  As 
I  very  rarely  wrote  on  international  politics,  I  do  not 
think  his  evil  counsel  had  any  appreciable  effect  on  my 
work,  but  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  that  his  overflowing 
bonhomie,  his  cleverness,  his  subtle  scheming  did  not 
greatly  influence  the  thought  of  Manchester.  He  was 
made  much  of  by  more  than  one  member  of  The 
Manchester  Guardian  staff. 

His  daughter  came  to  sing  at  a  concert  I  organised,  and 
it  was  after  this  concert  that  he  so  overwhelmed  me  with 
flattery  that  I  looked  at  him  in  amazement.  I  said  to 
myself :  "  You  are  a  humbug."  But  on  looking  at  him 
again,  I  said  :  "  No  ;  you're  not  a  humbug  :  you're  a  fool." 
A  third  scrutiny,  however,  left  me  in  doubt,  and  I  said  : 
"  I'm  damned  if  I  know  what  you  are."     Certainly  I  never 


MANCHESTER  PEOPLE  161 

suspected  he  was  first  cousin  to  a  spy,  that  he  was  paid 
handsomely  by  his  Government  for  his  propaganda  work 
in  Manchester,  and  that  he  secretly  despised  and  hated  us. 

Shortly  after  war  broke  out,  many  things  were  dis- 
covered about  Schlagintweit  that  had  hitherto  been 
unknown,  and  he  was  led,  handcuffed,  to  Knutsford  gaol, 
but  not  before  he  had  broken  through  the  five-mile  radius 
to  which,  as  a  German,  he  was  confined,  and  not  before 
he  had  motored  through  a  far-off  district  where  tens  of 
thousands  of  our  soldiers  were  encamped. 

I  do  not  believe  London  would  have  been  deceived  by 
him,  and  I  am  sure  that  Ecclefechan  wouldn't.  Yet 
Manchester  was. 

Manchester  is  young,  ingenuous,  trusting,  guileless. 

•  ••••••» 

Have  you  ever  noticed  (but  you  must  have  done  !) 
that  the  self-made  man — and  half  the  prosperous  men  in 
Manchester  are  self-made — will  frequently  part  with  a 
ten-pound  note  much  more  readily  than  he  will  with  a 
few  pence  ?  The  economical  habits  of  his  youth  still 
cling  to  and  dominate  him,  and  he  counts  the  halfpence 
and  is  careless  of  the  pounds. 

One  Saturday  night  in  the  summer,  I  was  taking  a  walk 
with  a  friend  in  the  country  ten  or  twelve  miles  from 
Manchester.  Our  talk  was  of  County  cricket,  in  which 
my  companion — a  most  magnificent  person,  with  ships 
sailing  on  half  the  oceans  of  the  world — was  greatly 
interested.  For  three  days  Lancashire  had  been  playing 
Yorkshire  a  very  close  match,  and  we  knew  that  by  now 
the  game  would  be  over. 

"  We  sha'n't  know  the  result  till  we  get  The  Sunday 
Chronicle  to-morrow,"  said  X.  regretfully. 

But,  five  minutes  later,  we  met,  most  miraculously,  a 
newsboy  with  a  bundle  of  papers  under  his  arm. 

X.  took  a  penny  from  his  pocket,  handed  it  to  the  boy, 
and  received  The  Evening  News  in  exchange. 


162  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

"  Very  sorry,  sir,"  said  the  boy,  '  but  I've  got  no 
change.     I've  got  no  halfpennies." 

X.  turned  to  me. 

"  Oh,  I've  no  change  either,"  said  I,  amused. 

With  an  exclamation  of  annoyance,  X.  handed  the  paper 
back  to  the  boy  and  pocketed  his  penny. 

After  we  had  proceeded  a  few  paces  : 

"  Lancashire  has  won  by  two  wickets,"  he  said.  '  I 
saw  it  in  the  corner  in  the  Stop  Press  news." 

Now,  X.  had  great  riches. 

An  incredible  story,  isn't  it  ?  But  it  is  true,  and  it  gives 
you  the  self-made  Manchester  man — at  least,  one  side  of 
him — in  a  nutshell. 

•  ••••»•* 

It  used  to  be  a  great  delight  to  me  to  see  Dr  J.  Kendrick 
Pyne  walking  near  the  Cathedral  or  in  Albert  Square,  for 
he  used  to  suggest  to  me  a  bygone  age  and  a  remote  place. 
His  short,  thick-set  figure  used  to  move  with  the  utmost 
precision,  unhurried,  unperturbed.  His  plump,  clean- 
shaven face,  his  well-shaped  head,  surmounted  by  a 
new  silk  hat  of  old-fashioned  shape,  his  gold-rimmed 
spectacles  with  the  peering  eyes  behind  them,  his  inevit- 
able umbrella,  and  his  correct  dress — all  these  conspired 
to  make  a  figure  of  great  dignity,  a  figure  that  always 
seemed  to  carry  about  with  it  the  atmosphere  of  the 
Cathedral  whose  organ  he  played  for  so  many  smooth 
years.  There  hung  about  him  the  tradition  of  the  famous 
Dr  Wesley. 

In  character  and  disposition  also  he  belonged  to  a 
different  era.  He  never  underestimated  the  importance 
of  the  position  he  held  in  the  city  as  Cathedral  organist, 
City  organist,  and  Professor  at  the  Manchester  Royal 
College  of  Music,  and  wherever  he  went  and  in  the 
execution  of  whatever  work  to  which  he  set  his  mind, 
his  word  was  law.  A  very  fine  type  of  Englishman. 
He  would  brook  no  interference  from  Bishop  or  Dean, 


MANCHESTER  PEOPLE  163 

and  his  combative,  upright  spirit  fought  unceasingly 
to  uphold  the  dignity  of  his  art. 

His  childlike  vanity  was  most  alluring,  and  I  used  to 
love  him  for  it  and  respect  him  for  the  way  he  clung  to 
his  belief  in  himself. 

One  day  he  took  me  to  the  town  hall  to  look  once  more 
at  the  wonderful  series  of  frescoes  that  Ford  Madox 
Brown  painted  in  the  great  hall.  When  he  came  to  the 
fresco  picturing  the  Duke  of  Bridge  water  at  the  cere- 
monial "  opening  "  of  the  Bridgewater  Canal,  he  pointed 
to  the  features  of  the  Duke,  and  inquired  : 

"  Whom  do  you  think  he  resembles  ?  " 

There  was  just  a  note  of  anxiety  in  his  voice  as  though 
he  were  afraid  I  should  not  be  able  to  answer  his  question. 
For  the  life  of  me  I  could  not  think  of  anyone  who  re- 
sembled Madox  Brown's  Duke,  and  I  stood  silent.  Pyne 
then  turned  his  face  full  upon  me,  and  again  inquired, 
somewhat  imperiously  : 

"  Whom  do  you  think  he  resembles  ?  " 

"  Why,"  exclaimed  I,  guessing  wildly,  "  it  is  a  portrait 
of  you!" 

"  Yes,"  said  he,  with  naive  satisfaction,  "  it  is.  I  sat 
to  Madox  Brown  for  the  great  Duke.  The  portrait  is 
immortal." 

But  whether  the  portrait  was  immortal  because 
Kendrick  Pyne  had  sat  for  it,  or  Madox  Brown  had 
painted  it,  I  did  not  gather. 

On  another  occasion  he  again  used  the  word  "  immortal," 
but  this  time  it  was  in  reference  to  one  of  his  own  works. 

"  You  know,"  said  he,  apropos  of  something  I  have 
forgotten,  "  I  should  have  made  a  name  as  a  writer  if 
I  had  gone  in  for  literature,  but  I  felt  that  music  had 
stronger  claims  upon  me.  My  organ-playing  will  not, 
so  to  speak,  live,  because  the  art  of  the  executant  neces- 
sarily dies  with  him.  But  my  Mass  in  A  flat  is,  in  itself, 
enough  to  keep  my  name  immortal." 


164  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

There  was  such  innocent  satisfaction  in  his  tone,  such 
a  bland  look  upon  his  face,  that  he  seemed  to  me  like  a 
delicious  grown-up  child. 

But  have  not  all  men  of  genius  this  superb  confidence 
in  themselves  ?  I  am  convinced  they  have.  Could  they 
possibly  "  carry  on  "  without  it  ?  But  only  a  few  men 
of  genius  have  the  courage,  or  the  artlessness,  to  speak 
what  is  really  in  their  hearts. 

»•••••  •  • 

One  of  the  "  characters  "  of  Manchester,  a  man  who 
loves  being  a  character,  is  Mr  Charles  Rowley,  who  for 
an  unconscionable  number  of  years  has  been  doing 
splendid  educational  and  recreative  work  in  Ancoats,  a 
congeries  of  slums,  a  district  of  appalling  poverty.  Here, 
in  the  Islington  Hall,  on  most  Sunday  afternoons,  one  can 
hear  first-rate  chamber  music  and,  as  a  rule,  a  lecture 
delivered  by  some  local  or  London  celebrity.  I  myself 
have  heard  Bernard  Shaw  and  Hilaire  Belloc  lecture 
there  and,  after  the  lectures,  I  have  gone  to  the  clean 
little  cottage  where  Mr  Rowley  occasionally  entertains  a 
few  chosen  friends  to  tea  and  talk. 

I  do  not  know  if  Mr  Rowley  is  a  Manchester  man,  but 
he  is  of  a  type  that  I  have  found  only  in  that  city.  He  is 
combative  and  energetic  ;  he  is  a  little  red  flame  of 
enthusiasm.  Though,  no  doubt,  interested  in  and  pleased 
with  himself,  he  is  equally  interested  in  local  public  affairs 
and  equally  pleased  with  the  people  for  whom  he  works. 
His  broad  and  pungent  humour  is  just  the  kind  of  humour 
the  so-called  lower  classes  understand,  and  his  energy 
of  mind  and  readiness  of  wit  are  remarkable.  I  have  seen 
him  on  several  occasions  talking  to — or,  perhaps,  talking 
with  is  what  I  really  mean — a  huge  audience  in  order  to 
keep  them  in  good  humour  until  the  arrival  of  the  lecturer 
of  the  afternoon.  He  bandies  jokes  with  anybody  who 
cares  to  shout  to  him,  and  he  has  the  true  democrat's 
gift — he  never  by  a  look,  a  word  or  a  gesture  implies  that 


MANCHESTER  PEOPLE  165 

he  is  in  any  way  superior  to  the  meanest  member  of  his 
audience.  These  rough  people  love  him,  admire  him  and 
laugh  at  him.  And,  of  course,  he  is  able  to  laugh  at 
himself.  Perhaps,  all  things  considered,  he  is  the  most 
human  man  I  have  met,  and  I  like  to  think  that  in  him 
the  spirit  of  Manchester  is  embodied.  I  do  not  mean 
you  to  infer  that  I  think  the  spirit  of  Manchester  is  the 
finest  spirit  in  the  world,  but  I  do  believe  that  it  is  a  spirit 
that  might  well  be  emulated  by  many  other  towns. 

What  is  that  spirit  ?  Well,  Manchester  has  a  sincere 
and  very  proper  respect  for  success,  and  particularly  for 
success  that  has  been  won  in  the  face  of  great  difficulties. 
Manchester  loves  education  and  knowledge,  not  only 
because  these  things  are  useful  in  achieving  success,  but 
also  for  their  own  sake.  Manchester  is  public-spirited, 
proud  of  its  traditions,  loyal  to  its  principles.  It  is 
cultured— not  in  the  super-refined,  lily-fingered  sense,  but 
in  the  sense  that  it  loves  literature,  music,  art.  It  is 
enthusiastic  about  these  things  ;  it  works  hard  to  come  by 
them  and  treasures  them  when  they  are  obtained. 

One  could,  of  course,  say  many  disagreeable  and  true 
things  about  Manchester,  but  as  these  have  been  said 
frequently  by  other  people,  I  refrain  from  repeating  what 
is  already  known. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
CHELSEA  AND  AUGUSTUS  JOHN 

THERE  is  a  prevalent  opinion  that  Chelsea  is  the 
British  counterpart  of  the  Quartier  Latin,  but  the 
resemblance  each  bears  to  the  other  is  only  super- 
ficial. The  Quartier  Latin  and  respectability  are  poles 
asunder  ;  its  population  does  not  only  never  think  of 
respectability,  but  it  does  not  know  what  it  is.  Parisian 
Bohemians  have  no  use  for  it.  They  do  not  condemn  it, 
for  it  may  suit  others  ;  for  themselves,  it  is  as  useless  as 
yesterday's  dinner. 

Chelsea  is  not  in  revolt  against  morals  or  anything 
else  ;  for  the  most  part,  it  is  quiet,  law-abiding  and  hard- 
working. Very  little  is  demanded  of  new-comers  ;  in  order 
to  obtain  entrance  to  that  magic  land,  you  must  be  a  "  good 
fellow,"  you  must  have  personality  and  a  real  love  of  the 
arts,  and  you  must  be  a  democrat  through  and  through. 
One  thing  is  never  forgiven — a  reference,  however  remote, 
to  your  own  success.  You  may  be  as  successful  as  you 
like  without  creating  the  slightest  envy,  but  you  must  not 
thrust  your  success  down  other  people's  throats. 

My  own  introduction  to  Chelsea  was  rather  of  a  whole- 
sale kind  ;  indeed,  it  would  be  truer  to  say  that  Chelsea 
was  introduced  to  me.  One  evening  Ivan  Heald  and  I 
finished  a  rather  strenuous  day's  work  at  the  same  time. 
I  had  just  finished  my  daily  column  of  chat  for  The  Daily 
Citizen  when  the  telephone  rang.  '  Is  that  you,  Gerald  ? 
.  .  .  Yes,  Ivan  speaking.  .  .  .  Finished  ?  .  .  .  Cheshire 
Cheese  ?  Right-o  !  It's  now  thirteen  minutes  past  seven ; 
we'll  meet  at  sixteen  minutes  past."     So  while  he  ran 

166 


CHELSEA  AND  AUGUSTUS  JOHN    167 

down  Shoe  Lane,  I  ran  up  Bouverie  Street  and  we  met  at 
the  door  of  that  caravanserai  where,  sooner  or  later,  one 
comes  across  all  the  bright  spirits  of  Fleet  Street  and  every 
American  sightseer  who  sets  his  foot  on  our  shores.  We 
feasted  and,  replete,  adjourned  to  the  bar  for  gossip.  But 
there  was  no  one  there  to  gossip  with  and,  presently,  Ivan 
said  : 

"  Come  to  my  flat  and  play  Irish  songs." 

"  But  your  piano's  such  a  poor  one.  Much  better  come 
to  my  place  and  listen  to  Wagner." 

So  we  jumped  into  a  taxi  and  were  soon  racing  through 
Sloane  Square  for  Chelsea  Bridge  on  the  way  to  my  flat 
in  Prince  of  Wales's  Road,  opposite  Battersea  Park.  At 
the  Bridge  Heald  tapped  the  window,  and,  the  taxi  having 
stopped,  he  jumped  out  on  to  the  pathway  and  promptly 
closed  the  door  upon  me  inside. 

"  And  now,"  said  Ivan,  "  do  you  know  what  you  are 
going  to  do  ?  " 

"  Whatever  you  tell  me,  I  suppose.     What  is  it  ?  ' 

"  You're  going  home  in  this  cab  to  prepare  your  wife 
for  a  lot  of  visitors.  Tell  her  there  will  be  ten  or  maybe 
twenty.  We  sha'n't  want  any  food  ;  we'll  bring  that  with 
us.  All  we  shall  want  is  coffee.  Ask  her  if  she'll  make 
gallons  of  coffee,  Gerald.  For  the  women,  you  know. 
There'll  be  whisky  for  us,  won't  there  ?  "  he  added  rather 
wistfully.  "  Now  trot  along.  I  sha'n't  be  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  behind  you." 

"  But,  Ivan " 

"  But  me  not  a  single  but,"  he  said,  grinning,  and 
turned  away. 

Half-an-hour  later  a  taxi-cab  full  of  strangers  carrying 
parcels  arrived  at  my  flat.  Heald  was  not  with  them. 
In  answer  to  their  ring,  my  wife  and  I  went  to  open  the 
door  to  welcome  them. 

"  Come  right  in,"  we  said.  And  then  they  told  us  who 
they  were  and  we  told  them  who  we  were.     A  couple  of 


168  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

minutes  later  another  taxi  full  of  strangers  arrived.  Still 
no  Ivan  Heald.  It  was  now  about  ten  o'clock,  and  during 
the  following  hour  Chelsea  people  still  kept  arriving,  some 
in  cabs,  some  on  foot.  It  appeared  that  Heald  had 
routed  up  half  the  people  he  knew  in  Chelsea  and  told  them 
that  he  had  found  someone  "new,"  that  we  were  just 
"it,"  and  that  the  sooner  we  all  got  to  know  each  other 
the  better. 

This  "  surprise  party  " — so  dear  to  Americans — turned 
out  a  complete  success,  though  half  the  people  had  to  sit 
on  the  floor.  Norman  Morrow,  away  in  a  corner  behind  a 
pile  of  books,  sang  Irish  songs,  Herbert  Hughes  played  the 
piano  in  his  brilliant  way,  and  Harry  Low  and  Eddie 
Morrow,  with  two  clever  girl-models,  acted  plays  that  they 
invented  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  Heald  came  in  late, 
armed  with  loaves,  butter,  cakes  and  fruit.  Not  until 
dawn  (the  month  was  June)  did  we  separate.  I  was  to 
meet  these  delightful  people  many,  many  times  later,  but 
so  casual  yet  intimate  was  our  relationship  that  I  never 
heard— or,  if  I  heard,  I  soon  forgot — the  surnames  of  a 
few  of  them.  We  called  each  other  by  our  Christian 
names  or  by  nicknames. 

Perhaps  of  all  the  Chelsea  people  Augustus  John  is  the 
most  interesting.  We  became  acquainted  at  the  Six  Bells, 
the  famous  King's  Road  hostelry,  and  he  took  me  to  his 
studio  near  at  hand.  It  was  a  big  barn-like  place  with  a 
ridiculous  little  stove  that  burned  fussily  somewhere  near 
the  entrance  and  from  which  you  never  felt  any  heat  un- 
less, absent-mindedly,  you  sat  on  the  stove  itself.  The 
studio  was  crowded  with  work  of  all  kinds,  the  most  con- 
spicuous canvas  being  a  huge  crayon  drawing  of  a  group 
of  gipsies.  Augustus  John  planted  me  in  a  chair  in 
front  of  this,  seated  himself  on  another  chair  and  stared— 
not  at  the  picture,  but — at  me  !  Now,  I  had  been  told 
that  John  does  not  suffer  fools  gladly,  and  I  suspected 
from  his  inquisitorial  glance  that  he  was  waiting  to  see  if  I 


CHELSEA  AND  AUGUSTUS  JOHN    169 

was  of  the  detested  brood.  Sooner  or  later  I  should  have 
to  speak,  and  I  groped  despairingly  in  my  mind  for  some- 
thing sensible  yet  not  obvious  to  say  about  his  bold,  vivid 
and  arresting  picture.  Through  sheer  apprehensiveness 
I  found  nothing,  so,  after  gazing  at  the  canvas  for  a  few 
minutes,  I  rose  and  passed  on  to  the  next  picture.  John's 
large,  luminous  eyes  followed  me. 

1  You  don't  like  it,"  he  said,  softly  but  decisively. 

"  Oh  yes,  I  do,"  I  answered,  "  or,  rather — what  I 
mean  is  that  '  like  '  is  not  the  right  word.  It  attracts  me 
and  repels  me  at  the  same  time.  It  makes  me  curious — 
curious  about  the  gipsies  themselves,  but  more  curious 
still  about  the  man  who  has  drawn  them.  But  you  didn't 
make  it  for  anyone  to  '  like,'  did  you  ?  " 

'  No  ;  I  don't  suppose  I  thought  of  anyone  at  all. 
There  the  thing  is,  to  be  taken  or  left,  to  be  accepted  by 
the  onlooker  or  rejected." 

"  Quite.  But  to  me  it  is  not  a  passive  kind  of  picture 
at  all.  It  thrusts  itself  on  to  you  very  violently,  I  think, 
and  it  rather  demands  to  be  '  taken,'  as  you  put  it.  It  is 
not  like  your  Smiling  Woman,  for  instance,  who  mysteri- 
ously glides  into  one's  mind,  wheedling  her  way  as  she 
goes.  Your  gipsies  assault  the  mind.  Your  picture  is 
quite  contemptuous  of  opinion." 

He  appeared  to  be  satisfied,  for  he  smiled  ;  if  I  had 
proved  myself  a  fool,  it  was  clear  I  was  not  the  kind  of  fool 
he  detested. 

We  met  often  after  that.  I  would  see  him  two  or  three 
times  a  week  in  the  Six  Bells.  He  used  to  drink  beer,  and 
he  would  talk  in  his  slow  way,  or  listen  to  me,  nodding 
occasionally  and  saying  just  a  word  now  and  again.  But 
John  is  the  least  loquacious  of  men.  His  presence  makes 
you  feel  comfortable,  not  only  because  his  personality  is 
tolerant  and  roomy,  but  because  you  know  that  if  you  are 
boring  him  he  will  not  think  twice  about  edging  away  to 
the  billiard-room  or  telling  you  abruptly  that  he  must  be 


170  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

'  off."  Like  so  many  very  hard  workers,  he  appears  to 
be  an  accomplished  loafer.  I  have  never  seen  him  at 
work  ;  I  don't  know  anybody  who  has.  I  have  never 
heard  anybody  say  :  "  John  can't  come  to-night  because 
he's  busy."  I  expect  that  when  the  fever  is  on  him,  he 
keeps  at  his  easel  night  and  day. 

But  perhaps  you  are  wondering  what  Augustus  John 
looks  like  ?  Have  you  seen  Epstein's  bust  of  him  ? 
Wonderfully  good,  of  course  ;  extraordinarily  good  ;  but 
it  is  rather  solemn — heavy,  I  mean.  John  is  not  ponder- 
ous, and  he  does  not  wear  the  air  of  a  prophet,  and  I  have 
never  seen  him  look  precisely  like  that.  His  hair  is  long. 
...  Of  course,  most  of  you  will  feel  disposed  to  sneer  at 
that ;  so  should  I  if  it  were  anybody  but  John.  .  .  .  But 
he  carries  it  off  splendidly.  You  know,  even  Liszt  (at  all 
events  in  his  photographs)  looked  frightfully  conscious  of 
his  locks,  but  though  John's  hair  makes  him  conspicuous, 
he  does  not  appear  conscious  of  his  conspicuousness.  He 
is  tall,  deliberate  in  his  movements,  deep-voiced,  very  self- 
contained.  His  shortish  beard  is  red,  and  he  has  large  eyes 
that,  in  some  extraordinary  way,  seem  separate  from  his 
face  ;  I  mean,  they  belie  it.  His  features  are  so  composed 
that  one  might  think  them  expressionless  ;  but  his  eyes 
are  brooding  and  deep  and  quiet.  He  has  not  the  noisy, 
fussy  little  eyes  of  the  "  trained  observer,"  the  man  who 
notices  everything  and  remembers  nothing  ;  he  notices 
only  what  is  essential  to  him,  the  things  that  are  necessary 
for  him  to  notice.  ...  Of  course,  I  haven't  described  him 
in  the  least ;  I  might  have  known  I  could  not  when  I 
began  to  try.  .  .  .  But  it  seems  to  me  that  the  essential 
thing  about  Augustus  John  is  the  quiet,  lazy  exterior 
which,  in  some  peculiar  way,  contrives  to  suggest  hidden 
fires  and  volcanic  energies.  A  Celt,  of  course,  and  the 
mystery  of  the  Celt  hangs  about  him. 

I  think  John  loves  few  things  so  much  as  simply  sitting 
back  in  a  chair  and  looking  at  people  :    ruminating  upon 


CHELSEA  AND  AUGUSTUS  JOHN    171 

them,  as  it  were  ;  chewing  the  cud  of  his  thoughts.  I 
remember  his  coming  to  my  flat  on  one  occasion  at  one 
o'clock  in  the  morning  when  he  knew  there  was  a  party 
there.  His  eyes  were  very  bright  and  he  came  in  rather 
eagerly,  and  rather  eagerly  also  he  sat  and  watched  us, 
sipping  cold  coffee  as  he  did  so  and  occasionally  raising  his 
voice  into  a  half-shout  when  something  happened  that 
amused  him.  But  though  he  sat  until  nearly  all  our 
guests  had  departed,  he  scarcely  spoke  at  all. 

And  yet  another  evening  I  remember  very  vividly,  an 
evening  at  Herbert  Hughes's  studio  where,  by  candle- 
light, we  used  to  have  music  every  Sunday  evening  and 
where,  in  the  half  darkness  at  the  far  end  of  that  long 
room,  one  could,  if  one  wished,  just  sit  and  look  on 
and  perhaps  talk  a  little  to  one's  neighbour.  There 
John  sat  in  the  dark,  like  a  Velasquez  painting,  his 
limbs  thrown  carelessly  about,  his  head  turned  gently 
towards  a  sparkling  Irish  girl  who  seemed  to  be  teasing 
him. 

It  is  only  now,  when  I  have  set  myself  to  write  about 
him,  that  I  realise  how  little,  after  all,  I  know  about 
Augustus  John,  though  I  have  met  him  so  often.  He 
reveals  himself  most  generously  in  his  work,  though  even 
there  he  keeps  back  more  than  he  discloses.  But  I  think 
that  even  to  his  closest  friends  he  reveals  very  little,  and 
that  perhaps  is  why  so  many  legendary  stories  about  him 
are  afloat.  He  has  the  mystery  of  Leonardo.  One  feels 
that  his  personality  hides  a  great  and  important  secret, 
but  one  feels  also  that  that  secret  will  remain  hidden  for 
ever.  Sombre  he  is,  sombre  yet  vital,  sombre  and  full  of 
humour. 

•  ••  •••  •  • 

Allusion  to  the  impression  that  Augustus  John  gives  of 
habitually  loafing  reminds  me  that  this  characteristic  is 
typical  of  Chelsea.  They  are  the  most  casual  people  in 
the  world,  and  it  is  their  casualness  that  the  worker-by- 


172  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

rote  cannot  understand.  I  know  a  score  of  studios  where 
one  could  walk  in  at  any  time  of  the  day  and  be  welcomed 
or,  if  not  welcomed,  treated  with  most  disarming  frank- 
ness. If  the  owner  of  the  studio  were  busy  on  some  work 
that  had  to  be  finished,  he  would  say  :  '  There's  a  drink 
there  on  the  table  and  a  smoke.  Do  what  you  like  but, 
for  God's  sake,  don't  talk  !  "  Or  :  "Go  round  to  the 
Bells,  Old  Thing.  I  like  you  very  much  and  all  that  sort 
of  nonsense,  but  even  you  can  be  a  bit  of  a  nuisance  at 
ten  in  the  morning.  It's  like  drinking  Benedictine  before 
breakfast."  But  receptions  such  as  this  latter  are  very 
rare,  and  most  artists — because  they  are  artists,  I  suppose 
— are  ready  enough  to  throw  down  their  work  and  play  for 
half-an-hour. 

I  always  think  of  Norman  and  Edwin  Morrow  as  typical 
artists.  Norman,  who  died  almost  in  harness  a  short  time 
ago,  was  absolutely  disdainful  of  success,  or  perhaps  it 
would  be  truer  to  say  that  he  was  disdainful  of  the  means 
by  which  success  is  usually  won.  I  imagine  him  looking 
upon  certain  successful  men  and  their  work  and  saying 
to  himself :  "  Only  the  distinguished  nowadays  are  un- 
known." But  he  would  say  this  with  his  tongue  in  his 
cheek,  laughing  at  himself,  and  knowing  that  the  dictum 
is  only  half  true.  He  liked  admiration — what  artist  does 
not  ? — but  people  who  liked  things  of  his  that  he  himself 
did  not  approve  of  made  him  "  tired." 

Of  course,  those  people  who  worship  success — or,  at  all 
events,  admire  it — are  very  difficult  to  bring  to  the  belief 
that  many  artists  are  almost  indifferent  to  it.  '  Artists 
may  pretend  to  care  nothing  for  success,  especially  those 
who  have  failed  to  achieve  it,"  they  say,  "  but  surely  it  is 
a  case  of  sour  grapes  ?  "  No  man  except  a  fool,  it  is  true, 
is  wholly  indifferent  to  money,  but  the  type  of  artist  of 
whom  I  am  now  writing  is  tremendously  casual  about  it. 
If  money  comes  his  way,  as  it  has  in  John's  case,  well  and 
good  ;  if  not,  it  can  very  well  be  done  without.     The  artist 


CHELSEA  AND  AUGUSTUS  JOHN    173 

lives  almost  entirely  for  the  moment,  for  the  moment  is 
the  only  thing  of  which  he  is  certain.  Yesterday  has  gone 
and  has  melted  into  yesterday's  Seven  Thousand  Years  ; 
to-morrow  is  not  yet  here  and  may  never  arrive  ;  there- 
fore, carpe  diem. 

Norman  Morrow  had  the  kind  of  subtlety  and  refine- 
ment that  one  finds  in  the  work  of  Henry  James.  I  very 
rarely  came  away  from  his  studio  without  feeling  that  I 
had  given  myself  "  away,"  that  he  had  seen  through  all 
my  insincerities,  that  he  was  aware  of  the  precise  motives 
of  my  acts  even  when  I  was  not  aware  of  them  myself. 
But,  being  a  swift  analyst  of  his  own  emotions  and  a 
constant  diver  after  the  real  motive  in  himself,  he  was 
tolerant  of  others  and  very  slow  to  condemn. 

•  ••••••• 

It  is  incorrect  to  assume,  as  many  people  do,  that  there 
is  in  Chelsea  anything  of  the  atmosphere  of  Henri  Murger's 
Bohemia.  Nowadays,  in  London  artistic  and  literary 
circles,  only  the  idle  and  incompetent  starve.  Murger's 
young  artists,  moreover,  are  absurdly  self-conscious  and 
flabby  and  childish.  Chelsea  men  and  women  are  keen- 
witted, level-headed,  and  experienced  people  of  the  world. 

•  ••••••• 

All  the  faddists,  of  course,  go  to  live  at  Letch  worth,  but 
there  are  in  Chelsea  a  few  groups  of  young  "  intellectuals  " 
who  are  good  enough  to  supply  comic  relief  in  the  "  be- 
tween "  days  when  one  is  bored.  One  Saturday  evening, 
having  been  to  the  Chelsea  Palace  of  Varieties  and  feeling 
restless  and  disinclined  for  bed,  I  remembered  that  I  had  a 
standing  invitation  to  go  to  a  certain  studio  where,  I  was 
told,  I  should  be  welcomed  whenever  I  cared  to  go.  I 
went  and  discovered  a  handful  of  young  men  sitting  round 
the  fire  and  directing  the  affairs  of  the  Empire. 

The  little  group  of  intellectuals  (all  from  Cambridge — 
or  was  it  Oxford  ?)  hailed  me  and  fell  to  talking  about 
politics,  socialism,  Fabianism,  Sidney  Webbism,  and  so 


174  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

forth.  All  very  bright  and  clever,  and  all  very  promising, 
but  the  wonderful  conceit  of  it  all  !  Some  of  them  were 
men  with  brilliant  university  honours,  but  they  had  not 
even  the  wisdom,  the  sense  of  proportion,  of  children. 
They  idolised  Bernard  Shaw  and  spoke  of  H.  G.  Wells  in 
terms  of  contempt.  They  really  thought  that  the  destinies 
of  our  Empire  were  directed  by  the  universities,  and  their 
priggish  little  minds  were  eager  to  "  control  "  the  poor,  to 
direct  their  work,  even  to  fix  the  size  of  their  families.  .  .  . 

I  sat  silent,  wondering  if  these  men  represented  the  best 
— or  even  the  average — that  our  universities  produced  in 
immediately  pre-war  days.  I  looked  at  their  long,  white 
fingers,  their  longish  hair,  their  long  noses,  and  I  listened 
to  their  drawl  which  was  not  quite  a  drawl,  and  I  thought 
that  their  conversation  was,  what  Keats  would  have  called 
it,  "  a  little  noiseless  noise."  They  had  brains,  of  course  ; 
they  were  smartish  and  "  clever."  But  what  are  brains 
without  experience  and  what  is  cleverness  without  judg- 
ment ?  These  men,  I  felt,  would  never  gain  experience, 
for  they  saw  in  life  only  what  they  wished  to  see,  denying 
the  rest.  Life  to  them  was  a  vast  disorder  which  Oxford 
and  Cambridge,  as  represented  by  them,  was  about  to  put 
right.  I  imagine  Mrs  Sidney  Webb  and  Mr  Beatrice  Webb 
(as  The  New  Age  once  so  happily  called  them)  walking  over 
from  Grosvenor  Road  to  Chelsea  and  smiling  blandly,  and 
with  huge  satisfaction,  at  their  ridiculous  disciples. 

I  have  described  these  people  because,  though  they  do 
not  represent  Chelsea,  they  are  to  be  met  with  there  in 
considerable  numbers.  They  have  flats  and  studios  full 
of  knick-knacks,  flats  in  which  you  will  find  art  curtains, 
studios  in  which  there  is  ascetic  severity  and  where  one 
has  triscuits  for  breakfast. 


CHAPTER  XV 
MISCELLANEOUS 

Arthur  Henderson,  M.P. — Lord  Derby — Miss  Elizabeth  Robins 
— Frank  Mullings — Harold  Bauer — Emil  Sauer — Vladimir 
de  Pachmann 

I  QUITE  forget  what  particular  concatenation  of 
circumstances  brought  me  into  personal  touch  with 
Mr  Arthur  Henderson,  M.P.,  but  I  rather  think  that 
when  I  waited  for  him  at  Waterloo  Station  I  was  acting 
the  part  of  messenger-boy.  Perhaps  I  delivered  a  letter 
or  telegram  to  him,  or  I  may  have  given  him  a  verbal 
message.  All  I  remember  is,  that  something  very  im- 
portant had  happened,  and  it  was  necessary  that  Mr 
Arthur  Henderson  should  be  apprised  of  this  happening 
at  the  earliest  possible  moment.  So  I  volunteered  to  meet 
him  at  Waterloo. 

We  walked  across  the  station  together,  and  I  was 
depressingly  aware  of  a  rather  bulky  form  with  a 
Manchester  kind  of  face.  He  spoke  heavily  and  uttered 
commonplaces  that  fell  dead  on  his  very  lips.  I  could 
feel  his  self-importance  radiating  from  him,  and  I  gathered 
that  I  was  supposed  to  be  in  the  presence  of  a  very  excep- 
tional person  indeed.  But  I  did  not  feel  that  he  was 
exceptional.  There  has  never  been  a  moment  since  I 
reached  manhood  that  I  haven't  known  that  my  intellect 
is  of  finer  texture  than  that  of  the  five  thousand  who  elbow 
each  other  on  the  Manchester  Exchange,  and  it  seemed  to 
me  that  night  at  Waterloo  Station  that  Hr  Henderson 
would  be  very  much  at  home  on  the  Manchester  Exchange. 
I  recollect  most  vividly  that  he  bored  me  very  much  and 

175 


176  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

that,  offering  him  some  plausible  excuse,  I  parted  from 
him  before  we  had  crossed  the  river,  and  darted  away  to 
more  congenial  people. 

A  few  weeks  previous  to  this  encounter  I  had  heard 
Mr  Henderson  give  an  "  address  "  in  a  Nonconformist 
chapel.  An  "  address,"  I  am  given  to  understand,  is  a 
kind  of  homely  sermon  in  which  the  speaker  talks  to  his 
audience  in  a  friendly  and  distinctly  unbending  manner. 
He  seeks  to  improve  them,  to  lead  them  to  higher  and 
better  things  :  in  a  word,  to  make  them  more  like  himself. 
...  I  have  not  the  faintest  recollection  of  what  drove 
me  inside  this  Nonconformist  chapel,  but  I  cannot  con- 
ceive I  went  there  of  my  own  free  will.  I  suppose  that 
someone  paid  me  to  go  there.  But  my  mind  retains  a 
very  clear  picture  of  a  pulpit  containing  a  man  with  a 
face  so  like  other  faces  that,  sometimes,  when  I  examine 
it,  it  seems  to  belong  to  Mr  Jackson  of  Messrs  Jackson 
&  Lemon,  the  famous  auctioneers  of  Boodlestown.  and 
at  other  times  it  is  owned  by  Mr  Brownjonesrobinson  who, 
I  need  scarcely  point  out,  is  known  everywhere.  .  .  . 
Really,  I  have  no  intention  of  being  violent^  rude.  This 
question  of  faces  is  important.  A  face  should  express 
a  soul.  No  great  man  whose  portrait  I  have  seen  possessed 
a  commonplace  face. 

The  address  was  heavy,  obvious  and  dull.  I  was  taken 
back  twenty  years  to  my  boyhood  when  stern  parents 
compelled  me  to  go  to  a  Wesleyan  chapel  one  hundred  and 
three  times  a  year  (twice  every  Sunday  and  once  on 
Christmas  Day) ;  on  most  of  those  hundred  and  three 
occasions  I  used  to  hear  exhortations  to  be  "  good,"  not, 
so  to  speak,  for  the  love  of  the  thing,  but  because  being 
"  good "  paid.  Mr  Arthur  Henderson,  Samuel  Smiles 
redivivus,  proved  that  it  paid.  He  didn't  say  :  '  Look 
at  me!"  but,  all  the  same,  we  did  look  at  him.  The 
spectacle  to  most  of  his  congregation  was,  I  suppose, 
encouraging ;    me,  it  didn't  excite.     I  can  well  believe 


MISCELLANEOUS  177 

that,  as  I  stepped  out  of  the  building,  I  said  to  myself : 
"  No,  Gerald.  We  will  remain  as  we  are.  The  penalties 
of  virtue  are  much  too  heavy  for  us  to  pay." 

One  Saturday  evening  I  journeyed  to  Liverpool  with 
twenty  or  thirty  other  newspaper  men  to  dine  with  Lord 
Derby.  Pressmen  are  accustomed  to  this  kind  of  entertain- 
ment from  public  men,  and  their  host  generally  contrives 
to  be  exceptionally  agreeable.  It  would  be  putting  it  very 
crudely  to  state  that  these  dinners  are  intended  as  a 
bribe  :  let  me  therefore  say  that  they  serve  the  purpose 
of  smoothing  the  way  for  the  dissemination  of  some  pro- 
paganda or  other.  To  the  best  of  my  recollection,  Lord 
Derby  had  no  other  purpose  in  view  than  the  laud- 
able and  kindly  intention  of  making  the  journalists  of 
Manchester  and  Liverpool  better  acquainted  with  one 
another. 

After  dinner,  various  ladies  and  gentlemen  from  the 
neighbouring  music  halls  provided  us  with  an  excellent 
entertainment,  and  I  can  now  see  Lord  Derby  smilingly 
and  courteously  receiving  these  artists  and  making  them 
feel  that  they,  like  ourselves,  were  honoured  guests,  and 
not  merely  paid  mimes.  He  seemed  to  me  then,  as  he 
has  always  seemed  to  me,  our  dearly  loved,  bluff  but 
unfailingly  courteous  national  John  Bull.  He  is,  I  think, 
the  most  British  man  with  whom  I  have  ever  spoken — 
honest,  brave,  resourceful,  self-sacrificing,  fond  of  good 
company  and  good  cheer,  hail-fellow-well-met  yet  a 
trifle  reserved  and  not  a  little  cautious,  blunt  but 
considerate  of  others'  feelings.  Some  of  us  collected 
signatures  on  the  backs  of  our  menus,  but  when 
Lord  Derby  had  written  his  name  on  the  top  of 
mine  I  left  it  there  alone,  not  caring  to  see  other 
names  mingling  with  his  :  perhaps  feeling  that  no  other- 
name  of  those  present  was  worthy  to  stand  beneath 
his  name. 

M 


178  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

He  spoke  to  us,  but  his  speech  had  nothing  in  it  save 
welcome. 

•  •  ■  •  •  •  •  • 

When  I  see,  as  I  frequently  do,  the  newspapers  and 
reviews  praising  the  works  of  Mrs  Humphry  Ward  and 
describing  her  as  the  greatest  of  living  British  female 
writers,  I  rub  my  eyes  in  astonishment  and  wonder  why 
Miss  Elizabeth  Robins  is  overlooked.  Mrs  Humphry 
Ward  can,  it  is  true,  tell  a  story :  she  knows  well  much 
of  the  behind-the-scenes  life  of  modern  politics  :  more- 
over, she  is  a  woman  of  the  world  with  a  highly  cultivated 
mind  and  a  varied  experience  of  life.  But  if  ever  there 
was  a  woman  without  genius,  without,  indeed,  the  true 
literary  gift,  she  is  that  woman.  She  cannot  fire  the 
imagination,  quicken  the  pulse,  or  stir  the  heart.  She 
plays  with  puppets  and  never  reveals  life.  Miss  Robins, 
on  the  contrary,  strikes  deep  into  life — cleaves  it  asunder, 
disrupts  it,  opens  it  out  to  our  gaze.  She  has  the  gift 
of  tragedy.  .  .  .  When  I  think  concentratedly  of  Mrs 
Humphry  Ward's  books,  I  remember  atmospheres,  social 
environments,  a  few  incidents,  and  I  see  dimly  about 
half-a-dozen  pictures.  But  when  my  mind  dwells  on 
The  Open  Question  and  The  Magnetic  North,  I  see  and  hear 
and  touch  live  men  and  women. 

I  know  nothing  of  Miss  Elizabeth  Robins'  private 
affairs,  but  if  my  intuition  guides  me  rightly,  she  has  had 
a  tragic  life  and  her  life  is  still  and  always  will  be  tragic. 
Her  temperament  is  not  dissimilar  to  Charlotte  Bronte's, 
that  great  little  woman  whose  sense  of  the  ridiculous 
was  so  great  but  whose  power  of  expressing  it  was  so  small. 

Miss  Robins,  as  you  all  know,  entered  the  ranks  of 
the  militant  suffragettes,  and  it  was  at  a  meeting  of  the 
W.S.P.U.  that  I  met  her  and  heard  her  speak.  In  the 
real  sense,  she  has  no  gift  of  speech.  When  she  has  to 
address  an  audience,  she  prepares  her  words  beforehand, 
memorises  them,  and  then  delivers  them  with  the  lucidity, 


MISCELLANEOUS  179 

the  passion  and  the  eloquence  of  a  great  actress.  I  think 
I  have  heard  all  the  best-known  women  speakers  from 
Lady  Henry  Somerset  up  to  Mrs  Pankhurst,  but  though 
my  admiration  of  Mrs  Pankhurst's  brave  and  proud  gifts 
scarcely  knows  a  limit,  I  consider  that  Miss  Robins 
surpasses  her  in  her  power  of  sweeping  an  audience  along 
with  her  and  in  her  great  gift  of  quickening  the  spirit 
and  urging  it  upwards  to  the  heights  of  an  enthusiasm 
that  does  not  quickly  die.  .  .  . 

Perhaps  in  reading  this  book  you  have  not  gathered 
the  impression  that  I  am  afflicted  by  a  devastating  bash- 
fulness  that,  always  at  the  wrong  moments,  robs  me  of 
speech  and  makes  me  appear  an  imbecile.  Nevertheless 
that  affliction  is  mine.  The  more  I  like  and  reverence 
people,  the  more  bereft  of  speech  I  become  in  their  pre- 
sence. It  is  so  when  I  am  with  Orage,  though  we  have 
been  intimate  enough  for  him  to  address  me  in  letters 
as  "  My  dear  Gerald  "  ;  it  is  so  with  Frank  Harris  (but 
perhaps  you  think  I  ought  not  to  "  reverence  "  him — yet 
his  genius  compels  me  to)  ;  and  it  is  so  with  Ernest 
Newman  and  Granville  Bantock.  And  when  Miss 
Elizabeth  Robins'  hand  met  mine  in  a  firm  clasp  and  she 
spoke  some  words  of  greeting,  I  had  not  a  word  to  say. 
Like  an  ashamed  schoolboy,  I  walked,  speechless  and 
fuming,  from  the  room  and  kicked  myself  in  the  passage 
outside.  ...  I  know  this  shyness  has  its  origin  in  vanity, 
but  then  I  am  vain.  But  I  am  a  fool  to  allow  my  vanity 
to  gain  the  upper  hand  of  my  speech. 

•  •  •  •  •  •  * 

Frank  Mullings  !  .  .  .  Well,  I  have  more  than  once 
said  that  singers  bore  me,  but  if  a  man  is  bored  by  Mullings, 
he  is  worse  than  a  fool.  One  always  has  a  special  kind  of 
affection  for  men  whom  one  has  known  in  obscurity  and 
of  whom  one's  prophecies  of  great  things  has  come  true. 
Mullings  has,  indeed,  travelled  far  since  those  jolly  days 
when  we  used  to  meet  in  Sydney  Grew's    little  flat  in 


180  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

Birmingham  and  make  music  with  Grieg,  Bantock  and 
Wolf  for  company.  A  great  "  lad,"  as  we  say  in  Lanca- 
shire :  a  great  fat  boy  without  affectation,  without 
jealousy,  without  even  the  pride  that  all  great 
artists  should  possess  :  a  generous,  simple-hearted 
man  who  is  capable  of  travelling  a  couple  of  hundred 
miles  to  sing,  without  fee,  the  songs  of  Bantock, 
just  because  he  loved  those  songs  and  wanted  others 
to  love  them. 

He  was  always  untidy,  short-sighted,  and  either  very 
depressed  or  very  jolly.  His  moods  were  thorough,  and 
they  infected  you.  In  Birmingham,  in  days  when  only 
a  few,  and  those  few  powerless  to  help,  were  aware  of  his 
astonishing  gifts,  he  was  serene  and  happy.  I  remember 
him,  Sydney  Grew  and  myself  sitting  on  the  floor  of  Grew's 
very  narrow  drawing-room,  our  backs  to  the  wall,  and 
talking  of  our  future.  I  was  the  oldest  of  the  three, 
and  for  that  reason  spoke  with  simulated  wisdom. 

"  Only  one  of  us  is  marked  down  for  real  success,  and 
you,  Mullings,  are  the  man,"  I  said.  ;  You  have  the 
successful  temperament.  Sydney  here  will  do  valuable 
work,  but  he  hasn't  the  gifts  that  shine  and  blind.  As  for 
me,  I  shall  make  the  most  of  my  small  but,  I  really  think, 
engaging  talent  and  swank  about  in  a  little  circle  of 
appreciators." 

Mullings  laughed. 

"  Do  you  really  think  I  shall  ?  "  he  asked.  "  Have 
another  whisky,  Cumberland,  and  go  on  talking  ;  you 
give  me  confidence.  And  confidence  is  half  the  battle, 
isn't  it  ?  " 

"  So  they  say.     But  haven't  you  confidence  already  ?  " 

"  Well,  it  ebbs  and  it  flows." 

"Oh,  he's  all  right,"  said  Sydney  Grew.  "Don't 
worry  about  Mullings.  But  what  do  you  mean  when  you 
say  that  I  shall  do  valuable  work  ?  " 

"  You're  an    artist,   and   you've  got   personality   and 


MISCELLANEOUS  181 

ideas.  Haven't  you  often  reproached  me  on  the  score 
that  you  meet  me  for  an  hour  and,  a  month  later,  see  all 
that  you  have  told  me  in  two  or  three  articles  that  in  the 
meantime  I  have  written  for  the  papers  ?  " 

"  Well,  you  do  pick  my  brains,  Gerald.  You  know 
you  do." 

"  Simply  because  they  are  worth  picking.  And  if  I 
didn't,  they  would  be  lost  to  the  world.  Why  don't  you 
yourself  write  ?     You  must  write  more  and  talk  less." 

He  took  my  advice,  and  began  a  career  that  promised 
much  until  the  war  interrupted  it. 

In  the  meantime,  Mullings  has  "  arrived  "  and  I  am 
longing  to  meet  him  again,  for  I  know  very  well  he  will 
be  still  fat  and  jolly,  that  he  will  still  allow  me  to  play 
accompaniments  for  him  on  any  old  piano  that  is  handy, 
and  that  we  shall  talk  excitedly  of  Bantock  and  Julius 
Harrison,  of  the  Manchester  Musical  Society  and  Phyllis 
Lett,  of  "  Colonel  "  Anderton  and  Ernest  Newman,  and 
of  everything  and  everybody  that  made  those  far-off  days 
so  full  of  interest  and  so  sweet  to  remember. 

Harold  Bauer  set  out  to  conquer  the  world,  and  has 
done  nothing  more  than  arouse  the  interest  of  one  or  two 
countries.  Yet  he  is  a  great  pianist.  But  I  am  told  that 
his  personality  stands  between  him  and  the  real  thing  in 
the  way  of  success.  I  have  sat  next  to  critics  at  his 
recitals  who  have  squirmed  in  their  stalls  as  he  played. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ?  "  I  have  asked. 
'  I  don't  quite  know.     But  don't  you  feel  it  yourself  ?  " 

"  Feel  what  ?  " 

"  Something.  I  don't  quite  know  what.  Something 
indefinable.  His  playing  is  too  greasy.  Did  you  ever 
hear  Brahms  played  like  that  before  ?  " 

"'  No.  I  wish  I  had.  I  think  his  Brahms  wonderfully 
fine." 

Certainly,  his  temperament  is  not  magnetic  like  the 


182  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

personality  of  Paderewski,  of  Kubelik,  of  Yvette  Guilbert, 
and  the  public  is  a  connoisseur  of  temperaments.  I 
think  I  have  elsewhere  observed  in  this  book  that 
the  public  collects  temperaments  just  as  a  few  people 
collect  china  or  autographs.  Perhaps  Bauer  is  not  exotic 
or  orchidaceous  enough.  He  is  too  ''  straight,"  too 
downright. 

"  What  are  they  like,  these  Manchester  people  ? " 
Bauer  asked  me  one  afternoon  before  he  was  to  play  in 
England's  musical  metropolis. 

"  Well,  they're  '  difficult,'  I  think.  They  know  some- 
thing about  music  here.  You  are  not  in  London  now, 
you  know.     You  have  reached  the  centre  of  things." 

"  Seriously  ?  " 

"  Quite.  I  mean  it.  These  people  really  do  know. 
You  see,  for  the  last  fifty  years  they  have  had  nothing 
but  the  best.     They  have  a  tradition  and  stick  to  it." 

"  The  Clara  Schumann  tradition  ?  Joachim  and 
Brahms  and  Halle  and  all  that  ?  " 

"  No,  no  !  That  is  on  its  last  legs,  on  its  knees  even. 
The  tradition,  I  admit,  is  hard  to  define,  but  it's  there  all 
the  same.  If  you  get  a  couple  of  encores  here,  you  may 
well  consider  that  a  success." 

"  Funny  thing,  the  public,"  he  muttered.  "  You  never 
know  where  you  have  it.  But,  of  course,  there  is  no  such 
entity  as  '  the  public'  There  are  thousands  of  publics 
and  they  are  all  different." 

Emil  Sauer  has  a  glittering  style  and  had,  fifteen  years 
ago,  a  technique  that  no  word  but  rapacious  accurately 
describes.  The  piano  recital  he  gave  in  Manchester 
nearly  two  decades  ago  was  the  first  recital  I  ever  attended, 
though  I  was  a  lad  in  my  late  teens  ;  the  occasion  then 
seemed,  and  still  seems,  most  romantic.  It  is  true  that, 
on  the  nursery  piano  at  home,  one  of  my  elder  brothers 
used  to  give  recitals  with  me  as  sole  auditor,  and  that 


MISCELLANEOUS  183 

I  used  to  return  the  compliment  the  following  evening, 
but  though  we  took  these  affairs  very  seriously  and  even 
wrote  lengthy  criticisms  of  each  other's  playing,  our 
performances  were  not  of  a  high  order.  But  one  evening, 
defying  parental  authority  and  risking  paternal  anger, 
we  slipped  unseen  from  home  and  went  to  hear  Sauer. 

I  think  we  must  both  have  been  much  younger  than  our 
years — certainly  we  were  much  younger  than  the  average 
educated  boy  of  eighteen  or  nineteen  to-day — and  we  were 
in  a  very  high  state  of  nervous  excitement  as  we  sat  in 
the  gallery  of  the  Free  Trade  Hall  waiting  for  the  great 
man's  appearance.  His  slim  and,  as  it  seemed  at  the  time, 
spirit-like  figure  passed  across  the  platform  to  the  piano, 
and  two  hours  of  pure  trance-like  joy  began  for  at  least 
a  couple  of  his  listeners.  My  brother  and  I  knew  all  there 
was  to  know  about  the  great  pianists  of  the  past,  and 
often  we  had  tried  to  imagine  what  their  playing  was 
like  ;  but  neither  he  nor  I  had  conceived  that  anything 
could  be  so  gorgeous  as  what  we  now  heard.  For  once, 
realisation  was  many  more  times  finer  than  anticipation. 
Only  one  thing  disturbed  my  complete  happiness — and 
that  was  the  notion  that  the  pianist  might  possibly  be 
disappointed  with  the  amount  of  applause  he  was  receiv- 
ing, though,  of  a  truth,  he  was  receiving  a  great  deal  of 
applause.  So  I  clapped  my  hands  and  stamped  my  feet 
as  hard  and  as  long  as  possible.  The  Appassionata  Sonata 
almost  frenzied  me  and  a  Liszt  Rhapsody  was  like  heady 
wine. 

But  all  beautiful  things  come  to  a  close,  and  towards 
ten  o'clock  my  brother  and  I  found  ourselves  on  the  wet 
pavement  outside,  feeling  very  exalted  but  at  the  same 
time  uncertain  whether  we  had  done  our  utmost  to  make 
Sauer's  welcome  all  that  we  thought  it  should  have 
been. 

"  Let's  wait  for  him  outside  the  platform  entrance  and 
cheer  him  when  he  comes  out,"  suggested  my  brother. 


184  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

Very  strange  must  that  two-voiced  cheer  have  sounded 
to  Sauer  as,  in  the  dark  side  street,  he  stepped  quickly  into 
his  cab,  which  began  immediately  to  move  away.  As  our 
voices  died,  he  opened  the  window  and  leaned  out,  holding 
out  to  us  his  long-fingered  hand.  Running  eagerly  to  him, 
we  clasped  his  hand  in  turn  and,  amazed,  listened  to  the 
few  words  of  thanks  he  shouted  to  us. 

For  long  after  that,  Sauer  was  one  of  our  major  gods, 
and  we  followed  his  triumphs  both  in  England  and  on 
the  Continent  with  the  utmost  interest  and  excitement. 
When  we  boasted  to  our  friends  that  we  had  shaken  hands 
with  the  great  pianist,  they  evinced  little  interest  in  the 
matter.  "  Why,  that's  nothing  !  "  exclaimed  a  Philistine  ; 
"  last  Saturday  afternoon  I  touched  the  sleeve  of  Jim 
Valentine's  coat  !  '  Now,  Jim  Valentine  was  a  great 
rugger  player. 

Perhaps  the  most  exquisite  and  the  most  fragile  thing 
in  the  world  at  present  is  the  Chopin  playing  of  Vladimir 
de  Pachmann.  For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century 
writers  have  been  attempting  to  reproduce  his  coloured 
music  in  coloured  words :  they  have  all  failed.  De 
Pachmann  is  an  exotic,  a  hothouse  plant.  Not  a  hot- 
house plant  among  many  other* plants,  but  a  plant  living 
luxuriously  and  solitarily  and  with  exaggerated  self- 
consciousness  in  its  own  hothouse. 

In  thinking  of  him,  one  feels  that  he  belongs  to  the  very 
last  minute  of  civilisation's  progress.  All  the  civilisations 
of  the  past  have  come  and  gone  and  returned  ;  they  have 
worked  age-long  with  tireless  industry ;  mankind  has 
struggled  upwards  and  rushed  precipitately  downwards 
through  thousands  of  years  ;  cities  have  been  sacked  and 
countries  ravaged  ;  Babylon,  Nineveh,  Athens  and  Rome 
have  bloomed  flauntingly  and  wilted  most  tragically  : 
and  the  most  exquisite  thing  that  has  been  produced  by 
all  this  suffering,   all   this  unimaginable  labour,   is  the 


MISCELLANEOUS  1 85 

Chopin  playing  of  de  Pachmann.  The  world  has  toiled 
for  thousands  of  years  and  has  at  last  given  us  this  thing 
more  delicate  than  lace,  more  brittle  than  porcelain, 
more  shining  than  gold.  .  .  . 

There  is  the  rather  painful  question  of  this  pianist's 
eccentricities.  One  can  discuss  them  publicly  for  de 
Pachmann  himself  continually  thrusts  them  on  the  public. 
You  know  to  what  I  refer  :  the  running  commentary  of 
words,  gestures,  nods,  smiles  and  leers  which  he  almost 
invariably  passes  not  only  on  the  music  he  plays,  but  also 
on  his  manner  of  playing  it.  I  refuse  to  believe  that  this 
most  extraordinary  behaviour  is  mere  affectation  :  it 
seems  to  me  a  direct  and  irrepressible  expression  of  the 
man's  very  soul.  It  is  not  ridiculous,  because  it  is  so 
serious  and  so  natural.  Nevertheless,  it  is  entirely  in- 
effective. It  does  not  help  in  the  least.  Rather  does  it 
mar.  To  see  the  performer  winking  slyly  at  you  when  he 
has,  as  it  were,  "  pulled  off  "  a  particularly  delicate  nuance 
does  not  give  that  nuance  a  more  subtle  flavour  :  it  merely 
distracts  the  attention  and  sets  one  conjecturing  what 
really  is  going  on  in  the  performer's  mind.  It  has  appeared 
to  me  that  the  pianist  has  been  saying  :  "  You  noticed 
that,  didn't  you  ?  Well,  you  couldn't  do  it  if  you  spent 
a  whole  lifetime  trying  ;  yet  how  easily  /  achieved  it !  ' 

The  large,  smooth  face,  with  its  loose  mouth  and  dizzied 
eyes,  is  the  face  of  a  magician  out  of  a  story  book.  It  is 
not  a  real  face.  It  has  only  one  of  the  attributes  of  power 
— egotism.  Egotism  has  furrowed  every  line  on  that 
countenance  ;  it  dilates  the  eyes.  Egotism  runs  through 
the  sensitive  fingers.  I  have  stood  by  his  side  and  wilfully 
shut  my  ears  on  the  music  and  fastened  my  eyes  on  his 
face  ;  but  I  learned  nothing.  I  do  not  know  if  his  mind 
dwells  aloof  from  all  emotion,  his  intellect  functioning 
automatically — as  would  seem  to  be  the  case  ;  or  if, 
experienced  and  cynical,  he  has  the  power  of  pouring  the 
very  essence  of  his  spirit  into  sound,  laughing  at  himself 


186  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

and  us  as  he  does  so — but  laughing  more  at  us  than  at 
himself,  for  we  are  deceived  whilst  he  is  not. 

It  is  strange  that  so  exotic  a  personality  should  have 
a  firm  and  unrelaxing  hold  on  the  public.     He  is  not 
caviare  to  the  general.     Villiers  de  l'lsle  Adam  is  wor- 
shipped by  the  few;    Walter  Pater  cannot  have  more 
than  a  thousand  sincere  disciples,  but  de  Pachmann  is 
adored    by    millions.     "Millions"    is    no    exaggeration. 
People  are  taken  out  of  themselves  whilst  he  plays.     You 
remember,  don't  you  ?   the  Paderewski  craze  in  America 
fifteen  years  ago,  when  the  platform  was  stormed  and 
taken   by   assault   night   after  night   by   society   ladies. 
I  witnessed  pretty  much  the  same  kind  of  thing  at  a 
de  Pachmann  recital  in  a  Lancashire  town  ;  but  the  latter 
pianist  was  stormed,  not  by  society  ladies,  but  by  un- 
emotional bank  clerks,  stockbrokers,  merchants,  working 
men  and  women.     At  the  end  of  the  concert,  they  flowed 
on  to  the   platform   in   hundreds,   and   surrounded  the 
pianist   whilst   he   played   encore   after   encore,    smiling 
vacantly    the    while    and    enjoying    himself   immensely, 
pausing  between  each  piece  only  to  motion  his  ring  of 
worshippers  a  little  farther  from  the  piano. 

An  enigmatic  creature,  this  ;  a  creature  who  will  never 
give  up  his  secret ;  perhaps,  even,  a  creature  who  is  not 
aware  that  he  possesses  a  secret. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
CATHEDRAL  MUSICAL  FESTIVALS 

NO  ;  I'm  not  going  to  be  a  chronicler  in  this 
chapter.  It  sounds  a  dull  subject,  I  know,  but 
many  things  happened  in  Gloucester,  Hereford 
and  Worcester  in  mellow  September  days  that  were  vastly 
amusing  and  which  were  not  reported  in  the  papers,  and 
it  is  about  these  I  am  going  to  tell  you. 

It  used  to  be  veiy  charming  to  go  to  one  of  these 
cathedrals  early  each  autumn,  drink  cider,  listen  to  music 
six  hours  a  day,  walk  by  the  river,  have  jolly  "  rags  "  in 
the  hotel  at  night,  and  come  home  again  at  the  end  of  a 
week  or  ten  days.  September  is  a  tired  month,  I  always 
think  ...  if  not  tired,  a  little  languorous.  ...  It  has 
many  days  in  which  one  wants  to  walk  about  just  quietly, 
enjoying  being  alive.  It  would  be  wrong  to  fuss  and  work 
really  hard.  I  suppose  that  in  all  those  wonderful  places 
in  which  I  have  spent  so  many  happy  weeks — Worcester, 
Lincoln,  Gloucester,  Hereford,  Norwich — people  ruminate 
and  browse  at  all  times.  Certainly  I  have  seen  them 
browsing  in  herds  in  September  days.  I  once  watched 
the  Bishop  of  Hereford  browsing.  He  stood  perfectly 
still  and  seemed  to  be  contemplating  and  measuring  and 
gently  wondering  about  the  growth  of  a  healthy  nasturtium. 
Everybody  used  to  migrate  to  these  festivals.  Well, 
not  quite  everybody  .  .  .  but  you  know  what  I  mean  ; 
just  the  very  people  you  most  awfully  wanted  to  meet 
again  and  talk  to  and  hear  music  with  :  people  like  Gran- 
ville Bantock,  Ernest  Newman,  Samuel  Langford,  John 
Coates,  Dr  McNaught,  Frederic  Austin,  Herbert  Hughes. 

187 


188  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

London  used  to  send  thirty  or  forty  critics,  and  the 
provinces  about  the  same  number.  And  from  the  sur- 
rounding towns  would  pour  in  county  families,  middle- 
class  families  anxious  (poor  deluded  ones  !)  to  keep  abreast 
of  the  musical  times  (or  do  I  mean  The  Musical  Times  ?), 
maiden  ladies  still  and  for  ever  ecstatic  over  Mendelssohn's 
poor  old  Elijah,  fierce  choir-masters  with  ideas  on  choral 
singing,  village  organists  who  really  believed  that  Dr 
Brewer  was  the  Last  Word,  immaculate  young  men  with 
aesthetic  fever  and  a  decided  leaning  towards  Elgar's 
The  Dream  of  Gerontius  (always  alluded  to  by  them  as  The 
Bream),  very  "  nee-ice  "  young  ladies  who  when  at  home 
played  the  violin,  and,  last  of  all,  deans  (oh  yes,  lots  of 
deans),  minor  canons,  slim  curates,  parsons  of  all  kinds, 
squires  without  money,  squarsons. 

It  was  hard  for  us  musical  critics  to  take  these  festivals 
quite  as  seriously  as  the  festivals  expected  us  to  do,  for  it 
always  seemed  incredible  to  us  that  London  or  Birmingham 
or  Glasgow  should  have  the  least  desire  to  know  how  the 
choruses  of  Handel's  The  Messiah  were  sung  in  a  little  town 
like  Gloucester.  Moreover,  many  of  us  were  amused  at 
the  tragic  seriousness  of  these  age-old  festivals — festivals 
at  which,  as  a  rule,  only  two  new  works  of  any  importance 
were  produced  and  over  which  old  oratorios — an  impossible 
form  of  art — hung  like  a  heavy  cloud.  So  we  used  to 
amuse  ourselves  in  our  different  ways,  and  the  ringleaders 
in  our  occasional  rags  were  generally  Granville  Bantock 
and  Ernest  Newman. 

Almost  every  detail  of  one  of  these  joyous  occasions 
lingers  in  my  memory.  Dr  McNaught,  the  doyen  of  us 
all,  an  experienced  critic,  a  witty  speaker,  and  a  most  pro- 
found musician,  was  the  not  unwilling  victim.  Bantock 
or,  to  give  him  his  full  title,  Professor  Granville  Bantock, 
M.A.,  had  brought  from  Birmingham  two  live  eels  in  a 
tank.  When  he  bought  these  sturdy  creatures,  he  must 
have  had  in  his  mind  some  jollification  or  other,  and  when 


CATHEDRAL  MUSICAL  FESTIVALS    189 

I  met  him  in  the  streets  of  Hereford  (I  think  it  was  Here- 
ford) during  the  morning  of  the  Festival's  first  day,  he 
asked  me  what  was  the  most  amusing  thing  I  could  think 
of  that  could  be  done  with  two  live  eels. 

"  Eels  !  "  exclaimed  I,  in  amazement.  '  Do  you  mean 
to  tell  me  that  you  really  possess  two  live  eels  ?  ' 

"  Yes,  here  in  Hereford.  One  gets  a  little  dull  here 
after  a  couple  of  hours,  and,  after  all,  eels  are  very  lively 
fry.  They  break  the  monotony  of  life."  He  paused  a 
moment.  "  And,"  he  added  rather  dreamily,  "  they 
swish  their  tails  so  busily.  I  suppose  an  eel's  tail  is  the 
busiest  thing  in  the  world.  Come  and  have  a  look  ; 
they're  in  my  room  at  the  hotel." 

And  there  they  were  in  a  tank  :  dark  objects  in  dark 
water,  swirling  about  with  enormous  enthusiasm. 

The  day  passed  and  no  amusing  idea  occurred  to  me. 
Bantock  conducted  one  of  his  works  in  the  cathedral  that 
evening — a  very  important  and  solemn  occasion,  and 
when  we  critics  had  left  our  "  copy  "  at  the  post-office  for 
telegraphic  transmission  to  our  respective  newspapers,  we 
foregathered  in  the  hotel. 

Now  Dr  McNaught  had  gone  to  spend  the  late  hours 
with  a  friend  and  was  not  expected  back  till  nearly  mid- 
night ;  it  became  obvious,  therefore,  both  to  Bantock  and 
myself,  that  the  eels  must,  in  some  way,  be  made  to 
surprise  him  on  his  return.  We  placed  the  slimy  creatures 
in  a  washhand  basin  in  his  bedroom,  poured  water 
upon  them,  and  gazed  down  upon  them  with  knitted 
brows. 

"  It  is  enough,"  said  Bantock ;  "  there  is  no  need  to 
think  of  anything  else.     Listen." 

And,  truly,  there  was  a  most  stealthy  and  uncouth  sort 
of  noise.  Eels  may  have  soft  skins,  but  their  muscles  arc 
hard  and,  as  they  careered  round  the  basin,  one  heard 
a  continuous  smooth  sound  as  of  people  going  about 
some  nefarious  business  in  the  dark,  and  now  and  again, 


190  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

at  unexpected  moments,  a  loud  thwack  would  be  heard 
as  one  of  the  fish  threw  his  tail  upon  the  side  of  the  basin. 

Newman  and  Frederic  Austin  and  one  or  two  others 
collaborated  in  preparing  our  scheme.  A  female  figure 
was  made,  carefully  placed  on  the  middle  of  Dr  McNaught's 
pillow,  and  gently  covered  to  the  neck  with  the  bedclothes. 

These  elaborate  arrangements  for  Dr  McNaught's  enter- 
tainment were  only  just  completed  when  the  doctor  him- 
self returned.  We  waited  in  dark  corners  of  the  corridor 
for  the  result. 

After  an  interval  of  a  few  minutes,  a  bell  rang  and  a 
chambermaid  appeared. 

"  There  is  some  mistake,  I  think,"  said  Dr  McNaught 
genially.  "  Either  this  room  is  a  bedroom,  a  larder,  or  an 
aquarium  ;  it  would  be  most  good  of  you  if  you  would 
decide  as  soon  as  possible  which  it  really  is." 

The  chambermaid  entered  the  bedroom  and  we  could 
just  hear  her  quiet  voice  as,  a  moment  later,  she  half 
whispered  : 

"  But,  sir,  the  room  is  already  occupied.  There  is  a 
lady  in  your  bed." 

Of  course,  the  psychological  moment  had  arrived,  and 
we  strolled  casually  into  the  bedroom  to  become  witnesses 
of  Dr  McNaught's  embarrassment.  The  jape  was  con- 
tinued. McNaught  was  taken  to  the  smoke-room, 
solemnly  tried  by  judge  and  jury  for  having  murdered 
a  woman  and  concealed  her  body  (it  was  at  the  time  of 
the  Crippen  affair),  and  sentenced  to  death.  Newman 
brought  a  hatchet  from  the  cellar  and,  not  long  before 
dawn,  the  mock  sentence  was  carried  out  with  elaborate 
pantomime.  .  .  . 

'  Very  childish — just  like  schoolboys  !  "  I  hear  a  reader 
(not  you,  of  course)  say,  rather  contemptuously.     Yes,  it 
was  like  schoolboys,  and  substitute  "  -like  "  for  "  -ish  ' 
in  "  childish  "  and  I  agree  with  you  most  heartily. 


CATHEDRAL  MUSICAL  FESTIVALS    191 

But  not  all  our  time  was  spent  in  this  uproarious  way. 
There  were  long  hours  of  talk,  great  talk  from  Langford  of 
The  Manchester  Guardian,  a  man  of  mature  years  whom  to 
meet  is  a  privilege  and  whom  to  know  intimately  is  a 
blessing ;  witty,  rather  cruel,  but  vastly  entertaining  talk 
from  Newman  ;  pungent  talk  from  Bantock  ;  and  general 
gossip  from  all  kinds  of  people. 

I  do  remember  so  regretfully — regretfully,  because  I  do 
not  think  a  like  occasion  can  happen  again — an  afternoon 
that  Langford  and  I  spent  sitting  at  a  little  rustic  table 
under  a  just  yellowing  grove  of  poplars.  Langford's  mind 
is  spacious,  most  richly  stored.  Nothing  can  happen  that 
does  not  at  once  and  without  effort  lit  into  his  philosophy 
of  life,  and  though  his  talk  is  profound  it  is  so  greatly 
human  that,  in  listening  to  him,  one  feels  completely  at 
rest.  He  accepts  everything.  ...  I  daresay  you  have 
noticed  that  many  people  have  tried  to  describe  the  effect 
Walt  Whitman's  personality  has  had  on  them,  and  you  will 
have  observed  how  they  have  all  failed.  It  is  an  impossible 
task.  .  .  .  And  I  feel  that  in  writing  about  Langford  it  is 
impossible  to  convey  to  you  what  he  stands  for  to  his 
friends.  I  recollect  Captain  J.  E.  Agate  once  saying  to 
me  :  "I  never  come  away  from  speaking  to  Langford 
without  feeling  what  an  empty  fool  I  am."  Yes,  that  is 
true  ;  yet,  at  the  same  time,  you  feel  reconciled  to  your 
own  empty  folly  ;  besides,  you  know  well  enough  that  if 
you  were  a  fool  Langford  would  not  talk  to  you  ;  he  would 
just  ask  you  to  have  a  drink  and  then  he  would  fumble 
clumsily  in  his  waistcoat  pocket  to  find  you  a  cigarette. 

Langford  will  never  be  "'  successful  "  in  the  worldly 
sense.  Perhaps  he  looks  with  suspicion  on  success ; 
certainly  he  has  never  attempted  to  achieve  it.  I  imagine 
that  his  nature  is  very  like  that  of  M,  and  if  what  everyone 
says  of  M  is  true,  one  cannot  conceive  that  anything  finer 
could  be  said  of  anyone  than  that  he  resembles  the  great 
Irish  poet. 


192  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

It  was  these  refreshing  talks  with  various  people  that 
did  something  to  mitigate  the  severity  of  the  atmosphere 
of  conventionality,  of  "  respectability  "  in  its  worst  sense, 
that  made  it  rather  difficult  to  breathe  freely  in  these 
cathedral  cities.  Everyone  wore  new  clothes  ;  men  per- 
spired in  kid  gloves  ;  girls  carried  prayer-books  and  copies 
of  Elijah  ;  deans  were  dapper  ;  ostlers  were  clean  and 
profoundly  polite  ;  and,  wherever  you  went,  you  heard 
people  saying  that  they  had  seen  Lord  Bertie  and  Lady 
Jane,  and  had  you  noticed  that  the  dear  Bishop  had  looked 
a  little  tired  last  evening  ?  There  was,  too,  about  these 
festivals  an  air  as  of  a  society  function.  Music,  an  un- 
willing handmaid  of  charity,  was  "  indulged  "  in.  One 
did  not  have  music  every  day,  for  that  would  have  been 
frivolous  ;  but  one  had  it  in  great  lumps  every  twelve 
months,  and  had  it,  not  because  one  cannot  live  fully  and 
vividly  without  art,  but  because  it  made  a  good  excuse 
for  a  social  "  occasion."  The  music  itself  was  excused — 
for  in  the  minds  of  these  people  it  required  an  excuse — by 
the  fact  that  the  entire  festival  was  organised  for  charity, 
that  vice  which  causes  so  many  sins. 

I  myself  came  into  rather  violent  conflict  with  the 
Norfolk  and  Norwich  Musical  Festival  authorities  on  a 
question  of  artistic  morality.  Ten  or  eleven  years  ago 
they  offered  a  prize  of  twenty-live  guineas  for  a  poem,  and 
another  prize  of  fifty  guineas  for  the  best  musical  setting 
of  the  poem.  I  entered  the  former  competition  and 
secured  the  prize.  My  "  poem  "  was  in  blank  verse  and 
lyrics,  its  subject  Cleopatra,  and  it  contained  the  following 
passage  : 

Iris.  And  when  with  regal,  arrogant  step  she  passed 
Across  the  portico,  her  white  breasts  gleamed  ; 
Her  neck  seemed  conscious  of  its  loveliness  ; 
Her  lips,  tired  of  tame  kisses,  parted  with 
The  expectancy  of  proud  assault ;  she  was 
As  one  who  lives  for  a  last  carnival 


CATHEDRAL  MUSICAL  FESTIVALS    193 

Of  love,  in  which  she  may  be  stabbed  and  torn 

By  large  excess  of  passion. 
Charmion.  Oh  !     Our  Queen 

Has  wine  for  blood  ;  her  tears  are  heavy  drops 

Of  water  stolen  from  some  brackish  sea 

Or  murderous  waves  ;  her  heart  now  leaps  with  life 

And  now  lies  sleeping  like  a  coiled  snake. 

But  in  to-night's  cold  moon  she  burns  and  glows  ; 

Her  heart  is  housing  many  a  mad  desire, 

And  she  is  sick  for  Antony. 
Iris.  The  day 

Has  gone,  and  soon  they'll  drink  the  heady  wine 

That  sparkles  in  each  other's  eyes.     Once  more 

Venus  and  Bacchus  meet,  and  all  the  world 

Stands  still  to  watch  the  bliss  of  living  gods. 

There  was  a  little  more  to  the  same  effect,  and  when  I 
wrote  the  stuff  I  thought  it  very  fine  and  still  think  it 
rather  pretty.  But  a  section  of  the  musical  Press  attacked 
it  violently,  and  for  a  couple  of  months  I  was  quite  a 
notorious  person.  I  gathered  from  the  articles  and  letters 
that  appeared  that  my  dramatic  poem  was  not  likely 
to  engender  music  that  would  carry  on  the  tradition  of 
Mendelssohn's  Elijah.  That  had  been  my  object  in 
writing  it.  I  was  sick  of  that  tradition.  I  wished  to  help 
to  break  it. 

One  day,  while  the  little  storm  was  still  raging,  I 
received  a  letter  from  Sir  Henry  J.  Wood,  who  was  to  con- 
duct the  Festival  at  Norwich  at  which  my  work  was  to 
be  given.  (Mr  Julius  Harrison,  who  has  since  become 
prominent  as  one  of  Sir  Thomas  Beecham's  assistant  con- 
ductors, had  gained  the  prize  for  the  musical  setting  of 
my  poem.)  In  his  letter  Sir  Henry  wrote  :  '  Very  much 
against  my  will,  I  am  writing  to  ask  you  on  behalf  of  the 
Committee  of  the  Norfolk  and  Norwich  Festival  if  it  is 
possible  for  you  to  make  any  alternative  version  of  the 
\  two  objectionable  lines  '  (I  fail  to  find  them  myself)  in 
your  libretto,  Cleopatra.  .  .  .  From  my  point  of  view,  the 
whole  thing  is  absurd  and  ridiculous." 

N 


194  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

I  could  not  find  the  objectionable  lines.  I  showed  the 
poem  to  a  most  maiden  aunt  and  watched  her  as  she  read 
it,  hoping  to  tell  by  her  sudden  blush  when  her  eyes  had 
reached  the  evil  place.  She  did  not  blush  ;  she  simply 
read  the  thing  and  said  :  'Oh,  Gerald,  how  nice  !  I  do 
think  you  have  such  pretty  thoughts."     So  did  I. 

A  few  days  later  Mr  Julius  Harrison  came  to  my  aid. 
The  committee,  it  appeared,  objected  to  '  her  white 
breasts  gleamed  "  and  also  to  : 

Her  lips,  tired  of  tame  kisses,  parted  with 
The  expectancy  of  proud  assault.   .  .  . 

I  changed  those  lines,  and  the  work  in  due  course  was  per- 
formed at  Norwich,  and  in  Queen's  Hall,  London.  Later 
on,  when  my  little  poem  was  sung  in  Southport  in  its 
original  form,  with  Mr  Havergal  Brian's  music  (for  he  also 
had  honoured  me),  Mr  Landon  Ronald  conducting,  the 
members  of  the  audience  did  not  leave  their  seats  when 
the  '  objectionable  "  lines  occurred  ;  rather  did  they 
seem  to  lean  forward  a  little  and  listen  more  intently. 

I  have  mentioned  this  incident,  not  because  in  itself  it 
is  important,  but  because  it  so  beautifully  illustrates  the 
point  of  view  of  our  Cathedral  Festivals.  Their  "  secular  " 
concerts  are  echoes  of  the  concerts  given  in  the  Cathedral. 
They  hate  (or  else  they  are  afraid  of  ?)  every  emotion 
that  is  not  a  religious  emotion.  They  think  that  God 
made  our  souls  and  the  devil  our  bodies.  They  may  be 
right ;  if  they  are,  it  is  clear  the  devil  is  not  lacking  in 
consideration. 

•  •••  •  ••• 

There  is  no  doubt  that  our  most  ecstatic  moments 
at  the  Cathedral  Festivals  were  supplied  by  Wagner's 
Parsifal,  which  Mr  J.  F.  Runciman,  in  his  little  book  on 
this  composer,  describes  as  '  this  disastrous  and  evil 
opera."  Only  excerpts  from  it,  of  course,  were  given  ; 
all  "  objectionable  lines  "  were  cut  out.     If  Parsifal  is  to 


CATHEDRAL  MUSICAL  FESTIVALS     195 

be  given  on  the  platform  at  all — and,  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  we  seldom  have  it  on  the  stage,  why  not  ? — then  it 
had  better  be  given  on  a  platform  that  has  been  erected 
in  a  spacious  and  beautiful  cathedral.  I  remember  those 
white  voices  floating  down  from  a  place  out  of  sight  near 
the  roof,  away  above  the  clerestory.  I  always  used  to  try 
to  obtain  a  seat  near  some  dimly  stained  window  so  that 
it  might  for  me  blot  out  the  rather  bewildered  or  con- 
sciously "  rapt  "  faces  of  my  fellow-creatures,  for,  in  listen- 
ing to  noble  music,  I  invariably  feel  much  greater  than, 
and  curiously  irritated  by  the  presence  of,  other  people. 

And  it  used  to  be  so  fine  to  come  forth  from  the 
Cathedral  at  noon,  step  into  that  mellow  September 
English  sunshine  which  I  have  not  seen  for  nearly  three 
years,  and  walk  by  the  river  .  .  .  walk  perhaps  a  mile 
or  so  and  come  back  to  the  hotel  to  eat  cool  meats  and 
cool  salads  and  drink  cool  wine.  It  was  at  these  times 
I  used  to  sigh  and  long  for  Bayreuth  and  wonder  if  I 
should  ever  see  the  grave  of  Wagner  in  the  garden  of  Villa 
Wahnfried  in  that  little  Bavarian  town. 

It  was  at  Gloucester,  I  think,  that  one  year  I  was  pur- 
sued by  a  certain  hard-working,  but  not  very  talented, 
composer  who,  having  gained  a  most  extensive  "  popular  " 
public  for  his  work,  was  now  anxious  to  win  the  suffrage 
of  more  cultivated  people.  Most  unhappily  for  me,  he 
took  it  into  his  head  that  my  musical  criticism  had  some 
influence  in  the  north,  and  though  he  was  quite  wrong  in 
this  assumption,  I  was  never  able  to  convince  him  of  his 
error.  Wherever  I  went,  lo  !  he  was  there  with  me. 
And  always  under  his  arm  was  a  musical  score,  a  score  of 
his  own  composition.  Something  new,  he  assured  me  ; 
something  really  quite  modern.  Would  I  look  at  it  ?  I 
did.  It  was  feeble,  paltry  and  bombastic,  but  I  did  not 
like  to  tell  him  so.  But  when  he  pressed  me  for  an  opinion 
I  said,  what  was  near  enough  to  the  truth,  that  it  was 
a  great  advance  on  his  previous  work.     This  seemed  to 


196  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

please  him,  and  he  took  to  inviting  me  out  to  lunch.  If 
ever  I  went  into  the  hotel  smoke-room  for  a  quiet  pipe,  I 
would  invariably  notice  a  vague  but  self-important  figure 
in  the  doorway,  and  presently  would  hear  the  unmistak- 
able pop  that  a  champagne  bottle  so  deliriously  makes 
when  it  is  opened.  A  bubbling  glass  would  be  placed  at 
my  side. 

"  Now,  Richard  Strauss  in  his  Ein  Heldenleben  ..." 
his  voice  would  begin.  And  he  would  proceed  to  tell  me 
all  about  Ein  Heldenleben  and  its  beauties.  To  bewilder 
him,  I  used  to  assert  that  Carmen  seemed  to  me  a  much 
finer  work  than  Strauss' s  Eleklra,  and,  because  he  was  very 
ignorant  and  because  he  had  not  the  slightest  apprecia- 
tion of  Strauss,  he  used  to  look  at  me  rather  pitifully,  and 
would  eventually  confess  that  he  too  liked  Bizet  more 
than  he  liked  Strauss  and  that,  indeed,  it  appeared  to  him 
that  Arthur  Sullivan  .   .   . 

One  day,  when  we  were  alone,  he  asked  me  if  I  would 
write  a  series  of  articles  on  his  works.  It  was  my  turn  to 
be  bewildered. 

"  A  series  ?  "  I  asked,  utterly  stunned. 

"  Yes,"  answered  he,  "  a  series.  First  of  all,  there  are 
my  part-songs.  Then  there  are  my  instrumental  pieces. 
Last  of  all,  my  Cantatas."  He  pronounced  cantatas  with 
a  capital  C.     "  Just  a  short  series  :  three  articles  in  all." 

I  hesitated,  but  he  looked  at  me  most  pleadingly.  I 
tried  a  little  sarcasm,  but  that  made  him  more  pertinacious 
thantever.  So  then  I  flatly  refused,  and  kept  on  refusing, 
and  did  not  stop  refusing. 

'  Well,  then,"  said  he  at  length,  "  will  you  put  in  writ- 
ing and  sign  what  you  said  to  me  the  other  day  about  my 
new  work  ?  You  will  remember  that  you  said  it  was  the 
best  thing  I  had  ever  done,  that  it  was  original,  full  of 
vigour,  astonishingly  fresh,  subtle  in  harmony  .  .  ." 
£  ,"  Oh,  really,"  I  protested,  "  did  I  say  all  that  ?  ' 
Yes,  indeed,  you  did." 


it 


CATHEDRAL  MUSICAL  FESTIVALS    197 

And  then  I  became  very,  very  rude  indeed,  and,  after 
that,  whenever  we  met,  we  used  to  bow  to  each  other  most 
politely  and  say  never  a  word. 

This  kind  of  man,  and  there  is  quite  a  handful  of  them, 
haunts  the  more  important  Festivals,  but  it  must  be  very 
rarely  that  one  of  them  obtains  what  he  desires. 

•  •  •  ••••• 

Can  you  recall  the  most  curious  and  most  unlikely  sight 
you  have  ever  witnessed  ?  Most  of  us,  even  in  the  course 
of  a  few  years  of  a  very  ordinary  existence,  witness  many 
strange  things,  but  of  all  the  strange  things  I  have 
stumbled  across  nothing  has  been  so  wayward,  so  outri,  so 
fundamentally  silly,  as  the  forty  organists  I  saw  sitting  in 
one  room  at  Worcester.  One  can  imagine  two,  or  even 
three,  organists  sitting  talking  together,  but  forty,  and 
fifteen  of  the  forty  Cathedral  organists,  seems  incredible. 

Now,  you  have  only  to  be  fond  of  modern  music  to  feel 
instinctively  that  a  man  who  is  an  organist  and  nothing 
else  is  sitting  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  fence.  In  ninety- 
nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred  he  is  helping  to  hold  things 
back  ;  he  hates  the  rapid  progress  which  music  is  making, 
and  he  has  as  much  imagination  as  the  vox  hiimana  stop. 

Well,  the  forty  organists  were  sitting  and  talking  and 
smoking,  and  as  I  looked  at  them  and  at  their  mild,  but 
worried,  faces,  it  seemed  to  me  and  my  companion  that, 
in  the  interests  of  art,  morality  and  ordinary  decency, 
some  protest  should  be  made.  And  we  decided  that  we 
were  just  the  people  to  make  it.  We  could  have  forgiven 
them  if  they  had  met  together  to  discuss  some  professional 
question — e.g.  how  to  get  their  salaries  raised,  how  to  get 
the  better  of  their  respective  vicars,  or  how  they  could 
expand  their  minds  so  as  to  be  able  to  appreciate  Debussy 
or  Ravel  or  even  Max  Reger.  But  they  were  gathered 
together  merely  because  they  liked  it,  just  for  the  sake 
of  enjoying  each  other's  society.  Monstrous  absurdity  ! 
Could  they  not  see   how  ridiculous  they  were  ?     Forty 


198  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

organists  in  one  room  ! — why,  there  ought  not  to  be  forty 
organists  in  the  whole  world. 

Fortunately  the  room  was  on  the  ground  floor  and  the 
hour  late.  My  companion  and  I  stepped  outside  the  hotel, 
waited  till  the  street  was  quiet,  and  then  rapped  a  series 
of  three  tattoos  upon  the  window-pane  to  secure  silence 
within.  We  then  sang  in  two  parts,  I  in  a  high  falsetto 
and  my  friend  in  a  lugubrious  bass,  the  "  Baal  "  Chorus 
from  Elijah.  '  Baal,  we  cry  to  thee  !  Baal,  we  cry  to 
thee!" 

We  had  not  proceeded  very  far  in  this  beautiful  music 
— intended  by  the  dear,  delicious  Mendelssohn  for  a  shout 
of  savagery,  but  really  a  quite  charming  cradle  song — 
when  a  cry  of  delighted  laughter  came  from  the  room, 
and  two  or  three  of  the  organists,  hatless  and  earnest, 
rushed  out  into  the  street. 

"  Come  inside  !  "  they  said  ;  "  come  and  join  us.  You 
belong  to  us  I" 

Too  utterly  flabbergasted  at  this  invitation  to  make  any 
reply,  we  turned  and  fled,  rushed  back  to  our  hotel,  and 
ordered  whisky-and-sodas. 

The  great  musician  to  whom  we  told  the  story  next  day 
said  : 

"  Well,  once  more,  you  see,  the  biters  were  bit." 

But  my  friend  and  I  did  not  think  so. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
PEOPLE  OF  THE  THEATRE 

Sir  Herbert  Tree — Gordon  Craig — Henry  Arthur   Jones — Temple 
Thurston — Miss  Janet  Achurch — Miss  Horniman 

SIR  HERBERT  TREE  never  met  a  stranger  with- 
out trying  to  impress  him.  He  always  succeeded. 
He  would  take  the  utmost  pains  about  it :  go  to 
any  lengths  :  use  his  last  resource.  ...  I  am  not  now,  of 
course,  dealing  with  him  as  an  actor.  We  all  have  our 
varying  opinions  of  him  as  an  actor.  Some  think  he 
could  ;  some  think  he  couldn't.  .  .  .  But  I  am  writing 
of  him  at  the  present  moment  as  a  man.  A  showman,  if 
you  like.  As  a  man,  as  a  man  who  "  showed  off  "  either 
as  a  wit,  a  mimic,  a  man  of  the  world,  a  superman,  or  what 
not,  he  was  supreme. 

I  met  him  in  his  private  office  at  His  Majesty's  in  the 
middle  of  the  run  of  Joseph  and  his  Brethren.  Pie  had 
invited  me  there  in  order  to  dictate  an  article  to  me,  but, 
as  he  told  me  over  the  'phone,  he  hadn't  the  remotest 
notion  what  the  subject  of  the  article  was  going  to  be. 
Could  I  help  him  with  any  ideas  ?  His  article  was  for  a 
Labour  paper.  Did  I  know  anything  about  Labour  ? 
If  I  didn't,  did  I  know  anybody  who  did  ? 

In  speaking  to  me  over  the  'phone,  he  appeared  so 
anxious  that  I  began  to  rack  my  brains  for  a  subject.  In 
the  recesses  of  my  meagre  intellect  I  found  the  remnants 
of  two  or  three  subjects,  and  at  nine  o'clock  that  evening 
I  presented  myself  at  His  Majesty's  Theatre  with  them 
on  the  tip  of  my  tongue. 

His  room  was  empty  as  I  entered  it.     Opposite  the  door 

199 


200  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

was  a  fireplace  and  above  the  fireplace  a  mirror  ;  on  the 
left  of  the  door  as  you  entered  it  was  Sir  Herbert's  large 
desk.  By  the  side  of  this,  seated  on  a  low  chair,  I  waited. 
I  had  not  to  wait  long,  for  presently  I  heard  a  soft,  rather 
pulpy  kind  of  sound  coming  down  the  passage  and,  a 
moment  later,  Sir  Herbert  entered,  wearing  a  long  white 
beard  and  the  garments  of  a  gentleman  of  the  East.  The 
play  was  still  in  the  first  act,  and  he  had  that  minute  come 
off  the  stage. 

"  Got  a  subject  ?  "  he  asked,  shaking  hands.  '  So 
have  I.  The  Influence  of  the  Stage  on  the  Masses  ! 
What  do  you  think  of  it  ?  Very  trite,  I  know,  but  there 
are  a  few  important  things  I  want  to  say.  Sit  here, 
will  you  ?     Here  you  are — ink  and  paper." 

And,  sitting  down,  he  began  immediately  to  dictate 
the  article.  He  got  along  swimmingly,  and  about  a 
third  of  the  article  must  have  been  down  on  paper  when 
I  heard  a  squeaky  voice  outside  the  door.  It  was  the 
call-boy.  Sir  Herbert  rose,  stroked  his  beard,  adjusted 
his  gown,  and  walked  outside  ;  as  he  did  these  things 
he  continued  dictating,  his  voice  stopping  in  the  middle 
of  a  rather  involved  sentence  when  he  was  out  in  the 
passage. 

After  five  or  six  minutes,  I  heard  the  same  soft,  pulpy 
sound  approaching  and,  while  yet  outside  the  door,  he 
began  dictating  at  the  precise  point  where  he  had  left  off, 
rounding  off  the  sentence  most  beautifully.  It  was  a 
remarkable  feat  of  memory.  After  a  very  short  period, 
we  heard  the  high-pitched  voice  a  second  time,  and  once 
more  he  moved  dreamily  away,  still  dictating.  Again 
he  stopped,  purposely  as  it  seemed  to  me,  in  the  middle 
of  a  sentence,  and  again,  when  he  reappeared,  he  spoke 
the  waiting  word.  Marvellous  !  He  gave  me  a  cautious, 
inquiring  look,  as  if  to  discover  if  I  had  noticed  his  clever- 
ness. I  smiled  back  reassuringly.  In  a  few  minutes  the 
article  was  finished. 


PEOPLE  OF  THE  THEATRE         201 

"  Do  you  like  it  ?  "  he  asked. 

'  Exactly  the  thing.  The  Daily  Citizen  readers  will 
be  delighted.  But  what  an  extraordinary  memory  you 
have  !  " 

''  Ah  !  You  noticed  that  ?  '  he  said,  seemingly  well 
pleased. 

He  began  to  talk  of  Joseph  and  his  Brethren  and,  in 
the  middle  of  our  conversation,  Mr  Temple  Thurston, 
looking  rather  nervous,  was  shown  in.  I  knew  that, 
at  that  time,  Thurston  was  writing  for  Tree  a  play  on 
the  subject  of  the  Wandering  Jew,  and  as  I  guessed 
they  had  business  to  transact,  I  withdrew  as  quickly 
as  possible. 

I  saw  Sir  Herbert  on  another  occasion,  but  whether  it 
was  soon  before,  or  soon  after,  the  incident  I  have  just 
related  I  cannot  recollect. 

He  was  conducting  a  rehearsal  on  the  stage  of  His 
Majesty's,  and  I  stood  in  the  wings,  watching  him.  He 
had  recently  produced  a  play  called,  I  think,  The  Island, 
by  a  Spanish  or  a  Brazilian  writer.  It  was  a  dead  failure 
and  was  withdrawn  after  three  or  four  nights.  It  was  to 
talk  of  this  play  that  I  had  come,  and  as  he  advanced  to 
the  wings  I  noticed  that  he  looked  rather  worried. 

"  What  was  wrong  with  the  play  ?  '  he  asked.  "  All 
you  critics  have  tried  to  tell  me,  but  I'm  blessed  if  I  can 
understand  what  you  are  all  talking  about." 

'  To  me  the  fault  of  the  play  was  quite  obvious.  The 
author  had  got  hold  of  a  good  idea  and  the  drama  had 
several  fine  situations  ;  but,  whereas  the  idea  was  poetical 
and  mysterious  and  the  situations  tense  and  dramatic, 
the  author  or  the  translator  had  employed  the  most  stilted 
kind  of  dialogue,  and  language  as  commonplace  as  that 
which  I  am  now  using.  The  play  should  have  been 
translated  or  rewritten  by  a  poet." 

"'  Ah  !  It's  very  strange  you  should  say  that,  for  I 
myself  had  felt  strongly  disposed  to  ask  John  Masefield 


202  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

to  prepare  the  thing  for  the  stage.  I  wish  I  had  done  ; 
but,  of  course,  it's  too  late  now.  But  a  manager  can 
never  tell  beforehand  what  play  will  be  a  success  and 
what  won't." 

'  Pardon  me.  That  is  often  said,  but  I  don't  believe 
it's  true.  Some  people  really  do  know  what  the  public 
wants.  Arnold  Bennett,  for  example,  and  Hall  Caine, 
not  to  mention  others.  Do  they  ever  make  mistakes  ? 
Has  Arnold  Bennett  ever  been  guilty  of  a  failure  ?  " 

'  No,  perhaps  not.  But  I  can't  engage  Bennett  as  a 
reader.  Even  if  he  would  consent  to  do  the  work,  I 
should  not  be  able  to  afford  his  fee." 

"  Yes,  I  know.  But  my  contention  is  that  there  are 
people  who  can  and  do  gauge  to  a  nicety  the  taste  of  the 
public."  And  I  mentioned  the  names  of  two  critics  who 
had,  on  many  occasions,  foretold  most  accurately  the 
exact  length  of  time  new  pieces  would  run. 

Tree  was  called  back  to  the  rehearsal,  and  he  glided 
away  for  a  few  moments,  fluttering  a  handful  of  loose 
papers  as  he  went.  He  soon  returned,  and  this  time  he 
was  cheerfulness  itself. 

'  It's  going  very  well,"  he  said,  referring  to  the  rehearsal. 
"  It's  only  a  stop-gap,  of  course,  but  it'll  make  a  little 
money.  I  must  write  to  those  critics  you  mentioned," 
he  added  musingly  ;  'or  perhaps  it  would  be  better  if 
I  seemed  to  run  across  them  accidentally  ?  " 

But  whether  or  not  he  did  run  across  either  of  the 
critics  accidentally,  I  do  not  know,  for  the  war  broke 
out  soon  after  and  disrupted  everything. 

It  was  when  I  was  staying  in  Guilford  Street,  Blooms- 
bury,  six  or  seven  years  ago,  in  a  house  opposite  the 
Foundlings'  Hospital,  that,  one  morning,  Gordon  Craig 
came  into  the  room.  He  was,  I  think,  in  search  of  Ernest 
Marriott,  a  most  ingenious  and  original  artist,  who  at  that 
time  and  for  long  after  was  doing  some  sort  of  work  for 


PEOPLE  OF  THE  THEATRE         203 

Craig.  Marriott  and  I  were  staying  at  the  same  boarding- 
house. 

When  Craig's  bulky  form  rilled  the  doorway  I  recognised 
at  once,  from  Marriott's  description  of  him,  who  he  was, 
and  I  introduced  myself  to  him,  telling  him  Marriott  was 
out. 

"  Yes,  I  know  he  is,"  said  Craig  ;  '  but  I  have  often 
wanted  to  look  at  one  of  these  fine  old  houses." 

And  he  walked  round  and  round  the  room,  with  his 
eyes  on  the  cornice,  telling  me  all  sorts  of  things,  which 
I  have  long  forgotten,  that  I  had  never  heard  before.  He 
seemed  to  have  made  a  special  study  of  English  architec- 
ture of  the  early  nineteenth  century,  and  whilst  he  was 
in  the  house  talked  of  nothing  else,  though  I  tried  to  lure 
him  into  gossip  of  the  theatre. 

He  gave  me  the  impression  of  a  large,  white  man  with 
hair  which,  if  not  entirely  grey,  was  very  fair.  He  had, 
I  remember,  hands  much  plumper  than  one  would  expect 
an  artist  to  possess  ;  his  face  also  was  rather  plump. 
He  seemed  to  fill  the  large  room  and  radiate  vitality.  He 
left  as  suddenly  and  as  inconsequently  as  he  had  come. 

"  How  like  he  is  to  Miss  Ellen  Terry  !  "  remarked  my 
landlord,  not  knowing  the  identity  of  his  visitor. 

"  Yes,"  said  I,  "  now  you  mention  it,  I  notice  the 
extraordinary  resemblance.  But,  after  all,  the  resemblance 
is  not  so  remarkable,  for  you  see,  he  is  her  son." 

On  one  occasion  I  was  sent  to  interview  Mr  Henry 
Arthur  Jones.  Over  the  telephone  I  made  an  appoint- 
ment with  him  for  the  morrow,  and  when  I  arrived  at  his 
house  I  found  rather  elaborate  preparations  had  been 
made  for  the  occasion.  Mr  H.  A.  Jones  was  standing 
in  the  middle  of  the  drawing-room  with  outstretched 
hand,  on  a  table  near  the  open  window  (it  was  July,  I 
think)  was  a  tray  with  what  one  calls  tea-things,  a  lady 
shorthand  typist  (specially  engaged  for  the  occasion)  was 


204  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

waiting  with  notebook  and  pencil,  and  a  maid  was  carrying 
into  the  room  a  teapot,  and  cress  sandwiches. 

The  presence  of  the  lady  typist  embarrassed  me.  She 
took  down  in  shorthand  my  questions  and  Mr  Jones' 
replies.  Thinking  it  would  be  foolish  to  waste  any  time 
on  preliminary  politenesses,  I  plunged  straight  into  the 
middle  of  my  subject.  The  lady  typist  sipped  her  tea 
in  the  awkward  little  pauses  that  came  from  time  to  time. 
It  was  not  an  interview  ;  it  was  a  kind  of  official  state- 
ment. It  was  like  the  proceedings  at  a  police  court.  I 
felt  I  should  be  held  responsible  to  a  higher  authority  for 
every  word  I  spoke. 

However,  at  the  end  of  an  hour  a  good  deal  of  excellent 
matter  had  been  taken  down,  probably  enough  for  a  two- 
column  article.  But  my  news  editor  did  not  want  a  two- 
column  article.  He  wanted  a  scrappy  little  paragraph 
or,  at  most,  two  scrappy  little  paragraphs.  Now,  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  Mr  Jones  had  gone  to  the  trouble 
and  expense  of  getting  a  shorthand  typist  specially  from 
town,  and,  more  particularly,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  it 
was  perfectly  clear  that  he  had  not  contemplated  the 
possibility  of  an  interview  with  him  being  used  merely 
and  solely  for  a  snappy  little  paragraph,  I  felt  it  incumbent 
upon  me  to  tell  him  just  how  matters  stood.  But  how 
could  I  ?  Could  you  have  told  him  ?  Well,  /  couldn't, 
though  I  tried  and  tried  hard. 

When  the  interview  was  over,  he  arranged  that  the 
shorthand  typist  should  return  to  her  office,  type  out  her 
shorthand,  and  send  the  result  to  me  in  Fleet  Street  early 
that  evening.  In  due  course,  ten  foolscap  sheets  of 
valuable  and  most  interesting  matter  came  along,  and  I 
handed  it  in  to  the  night-editor  just  as  it  stood. 

Next  morning,  only  two  snippety  paragraphs  appeared 
in  the  paper,  and  I  have  often  thought  since  that 
Mr  H.  A.  Jones  must  have  felt  disgusted  with  the  paper, 
a  little  more  disgusted  with    himself,   but  most  of  all 


PEOPLE  OF  THE  THEATRE         205 

disgusted  with  me.  After  all,  it  was  not  entirely  my 
fault,  was  it  ?  ...  I  mean,  he  should  not  have  taken 
himself  quite  so  importantly,  should  he  ? 

I  retain  a  very  clear  impression  of  his  personality. 
He  was  short,  rather  dapper,  and  very  deliberate.  He 
always  thought  briefly  before  he  answered  a  question,  but 
when  he  did  answer  it  he  did  so  without  hesitation,  going 
straight  into  the  middle  of  the  matter.  He  struck  me, 
as  he  sat  on  a  rather  low  chair  opposite  the  window,  as 
essentially  earnest,  essentially  honest-minded,  essentially 
clear-headed.  His  manner  was  a  little  important.  He 
may  be  said  to  have  "pronounced"  things  rather  than 
to  have  spoken  them.  He  was  formally  courteous.  I 
do  not  think  one  could  justly  say  that  he  has  the 
"  artistic  "  temperament,  and  I  imagine  he  possesses  no 
particularly  acute  perception  of  beauty.  There  is  no 
emotional  enthusiasm  about  him  ;  he  has  no  unreliable 
"  moods  "  ;  he  does  not  think  or  feel  one  thing  to-day 
and  another  to-morrow.  By  no  means  typically  a  man 
of  this  generation,  and  yet  not  a  man  who  has  outlived 
his  own  time.  It  appeared  to  me  that  he  had  little 
intuition ;  his  very  considerable  knowledge  of  human 
nature  is  probably  based  on  close  observation  and  most 
careful  deduction. 

When  we  parted  he  gave  me  copies  of  two  of  his  plays. 

He  was  a  man  of  considerable  personal  charm  and  no 
little  intellectual  weight :  a  man  both  kindly  and  stern  : 
a  man  who  could  at  all  times  be  trusted  to  see  the  humour 
of  things  and  who,  on  occasion,  could  be  cruel  to  be  kind. 

Not  so  very  long  before  the  war,  my  journalistic  duties 
took  me  to  the  first  night  of  Mr  Temple  Thurston's  The 
Greatest  Wish  in  the  World,  a  rather  weak  but  quite 
innocuous  play  given  by  Mr  Bourchier.  If  the  play 
"  succeeded,"  the  audience  assuredly  didn't.  When  the 
curtain  went  down  on  the  last  act,  there  was  a  good  deal 


206  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

of  applause,  chiefly  from  the  gallery,  and  we  who  were 
seated  in  the  stalls  waited  a  moment  to  discover  what 
the  verdict  of  the  house  was  going  to  be. 

Now,  every  close  observer  of  theatre  audiences  knows 
well  enough  that  among  the  many  different  kinds  of 
applause  there  is  one  kind  that  is  very  sinister  :  it  is  a 
kind  difficult  to  describe,  but  unmistakable  enough  when 
heard :  to  the  uninterested  listener  it  sounds  sincere  and 
hearty,  but  if  you  listen  carefully  you  will  catch,  beneath 
the  heartiness,  a  derisive  note — something  viciously  eager 
in  the  shouts,  something  malicious  in  the  whistles.  There 
was  this  sinister  sound,  a  kind  of  ground-bass,  in  the 
applause  that  followed  the  last  fall  of  the  curtain  at 
the  first  production  of  Mr  Temple  Thurston's  play.  The 
mimes  had  walked  on  and  bowed  their  acknowledgments 
when,  suddenly,  there  arose  loud  cries  of  "'  Author ! 
Author  !  "  Well  did  I  know  what  those  cries  meant,  and 
I  told  myself  that  the  play  had  failed  pitifully.  I  was 
edging  my  way  out  of  the  stalls  when,  to  my  amazement, 
I  saw  the  curtain  rise  once  more  and  disclose  the  nervous 
figure  of  Mr  Temple  Thurston.  Instantly  there  went  up 
from  a  section  of  the  audience  hisses  and  boos  and  cries 
of  half-angry  disappointment.  Mr  Thurston  shrank 
and  winced  as  though  he  had  been  struck  in  the  face, 
and  his  exit  was  confused  and  awkward.  It  was  as 
wanton  an  act  of  cruelty  as  I  have  ever  witnessed : 
deliberate,  heartless,  stupid.  This  is  not  the  place  to 
discuss  the  propriety  or  otherwise  of  an  audience  insult- 
ing a  writer  who  has  failed  to  please  it,  but  it  is  certain 
that  in  no  other  profession,  in  no  other  walk  of  life,  do 
such  savage  traditions  prevail  as  in  the  enticing  and 
intoxicating  world  of  the  theatre. 

Not  long  after  this  incident  I  was  received  by  Mr 
Temple  Thurston  at  his  flat.  I  found  him  writing,  and 
almost  at  once  he  began  to  talk  most  intimately  about 
himself. 


PEOPLE  OF  THE  THEATRE         207 

'  Never  again,"  said  he,  apropos  of  the  episode  I 
have  just  related,  "  shall  I  '  take  a  call.'  I  cannot  even 
now  think  of  those  awful  few  moments  on  the  stage 
without  a  shudder.  It  is  distressing  enough  for  an  author 
to  fail — distressing  -'  not  only  because  of  his  own  dis- 
appointment, but  chiefly  because  of  the  disappointment 
he  brings  to  the  actors  who  have  done  their  best  for  his 
play — without  having  his  failure  hurled  in  his  face,  so 
to  speak.  But  though  I  shall  never  again  take  a  call,  I 
shall  continue  writing  plays.  I  have  never  yet  written 
a  really  successful  play,  and  no  work  of  mine  has  had  a 
longer  run  than  sixty  performances.  I  have  had  many 
chances,  of  course,  but  I  shall  have  more." 

He  then  told  me  of  his  early  attempts  to  win  fame. 
Like  many  other  successful  writers,  he  began  in  Fleet 
Street.  The  work  there  did  not  suit  him,  and  he  soon 
abandoned  it.  He  married  early,  lived  with  his  wife 
in  a  couple  of  rooms  in  Chancery  Lane,  and  for  a  little 
time  picked  up  a  living  as  best  he  could.  The  story  of  his 
first  wife's  extraordinary  success  with  John  Chileote,  M.P., 
is.  common  knowledge.  That  success  preceded  his  own 
by  two  or  three  years,  but  he  had  not  long  to  wait  before 
his  own  work  found  and  pleased  the  public. 

I  saw  Thurston  on  two  or  three  other  occasions,  and 
found  him  a  man  avid  of  enjoyment,  frank,  a  little  bitter, 
combative,  kindly,  strong,  sensitive,  independent.  He 
has  a  nature  at  once  contradictory  and  baffling. 

Twenty  years  must  have  passed  since  Miss  Janet 
Achurch  gave  her  astounding  performance  in  Manchester 
of  Cleopatra  in  Shakespeare's  Antony  and  Cleopatra. 
It  was  a  performance  so  remarkable,  so  electrifying,  that 
the  old  Queen's  Theatre  in  Quay  Street  became,  for 
a  time,  the  centre  of  theatrical  interest  for  the  whole 
of  England.  What  London  critic  nowadays  goes  to 
Manchester,  or  anywhere  else  more  than  five  miles  from 


208  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

home,  to  witness  a  Shakespeare  play  ?  Yet  they  all 
went  to  see  Miss  Achurch.  I  remember  a  cheeky  and 
brilliant  article  by  Bernard  Shaw  in  The  Saturday  Review 
on  Miss  Achurch,  another  by  Clement  Scott  in  The  Daily 
Telegraph,  a  third  by  William  Archer  in  (I  think)  The 
World. 

For  myself,  I  saw  the  play  seventeen  times,  and  though 
I  have  seen  many  other  actresses  interpret  Cleopatra,  I 
have  not  known  one  whose  performance  could  rank  with 
the  gorgeous  presentation  by  Miss  Achurch. 

All  my  visits  to  the  Queen's  were  surreptitious,  for  I 
was  brought  up  in  a  family  that  not  only  hated  the 
theatre  as  an  evil  place  but  feared  it  also.  Though  I 
was  but  a  boy  I  had  a  certain  amount  of  freedom,  for  I 
was  studying  medicine  at  the  Victoria  University,  and 
many  afternoons  that  should  have  been  spent  in  dissecting 
human  feet  and  eyes  were  passed  in  the  gallery  of 
Flanagan's  theatre. 

I  suppose  I  must  have  been  in  love  with  Miss  Achurch, 
though  the  kind  of  feeling  that  a  boy  sometimes  has  for  a 
great  emotional  actress  is  more  akin  to  worship  than  love. 
I  longed  to  approach  my  divinity,  but  feared  to  do  so. 
I  wrote  about  her  in  local  papers,  and  I  remember  a 
curious  weekly  called  Northern  Finance  which,  for  some 
dark  reason  or  other,  printed,  among  its  news  of  stocks 
and  shares,  a  crude,  bubbling  article  of  mine  on  Miss 
Achurch.  I  sent  all  my  articles  to  her  and,  with  the 
colossal  impudence  of  youth,  and  driven  by  a  schoolboy 
curiosity,  asked  for  an  interview. 

She  wrote  to  me.  Reader,  are  you  young  enough  to 
remember  how  you  felt  when  you  first  saw  Miss  Ellen 
Terry  ?  Can  you  recall  your  adoration,  your  devotion  ? 
.  .  .  Those  days  of  young  worship,  how  fine  they  are  ! 
Novelists  always  laugh  at  calf  love  because  they  cannot 
write  about  it  and  make  it  as  beautiful  as  it  really  is. 
Like  many   other   things  that  are   human,  calf  love   is 


PEOPLE  OF  THE  THEATRE         209 

absurd  and  beautiful,  noble  and  silly,  profound  and 
superficial.  But,  unlike  so  many  things  that  are  human, 
there  is  nothing  about  it  that  is  mean  and  selfish,  nothing 
that  is  not  proud  and  good. 

Yes,  she  wrote  to  me  and  invited  me  to  visit  her.  She 
was  kind  and  gracious.  .  .  .  Amused  ?  Oh,  I  have  no 
doubt  she  was  amused,  but  she  never  betrayed  it. 

I  used  to  hang  about  the  stage  door  in  the  dark  to 
watch  her  go  into  the  theatre  or  come  out  of  it.  I 
scraped  up  an  acquaintance  with  several  members  of  the 
orchestra,  for  I  thought  I  saw  in  them  a  kind  of  magic 
borrowed  from  her.     Her  hotel  was  a  castle. 

Those  of  my  readers  who  never  saw  Miss  Achurch  in 
what  theatrical  writers  call  her  "  palmy  "  days  can  have 
only  a  very  faint  conception  of  her  genius.  She  became 
ill :  her  beauty  faded.  Only  rarely  did  one  see  her  on 
the  stage. 

Years  later  I  saw  her  in  Ibsen's  Ghosts  and,  again  much 
later,  in  a  small  part  in  Masefield's  adaptation  of  Wiers- 
Jennsen's  The  Witch.  She  was  wonderful  in  both  plays, 
but  the  grandeur  had  departed,  the  glory  almost  gone. 

It  is  most  sadly  true  that  actors  live  only  in  their  own 
generation.  Janet  Achurch  ought  to  have  lived  for  ever. 
She  will  not  be  forgotten  while  we  who  saw  her  live  ; 
but  we  cannot  communicate  to  others  the  genius  we 
witnessed  and  worshipped. 

•  ••••••• 

Miss  Horniman  is  one  of  the  many  people  I  have  never 
met.  "  Then  why  write  about  her  ?  "  you  ask.  I  really 
don't  know,  except  that  I  want  to.  She  was  (and,  for 
all  I  know  to  the  contrary,  still  is)  something  of  a  person- 
ality in  Manchester,  and  she  was  so  for  a  considerable 
period,  she  producing  quite  a  few  plays  at  the  Gaiety 
Theatre  that  were  well  worth  seeing. 

But  she  was  ridiculously  overpraised.  She  was  petted 
and  spoiled   by  The  Manchester  Guardian,  the  Victoria 


210  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

University  gave  her  an  honorary  Master  of  Art's  degree, 
many  literary  and  dramatic  societies  went  down  on  their 
knees  to  her  and  implored  her  to  come  and  speak  to  them, 
and  she  was  regarded  by  the  entire  community  as  a  woman 
of  daring  originality,  great  wisdom  and  vast  experience. 
She  could  do  nothing  wrong.  No  play  she  produced,  no 
matter  how  sour  and  Mancunian,  was  ever  condemned 
by  the  local  Press.  Miss  Horniman  had  given  it,  there- 
fore it  was  "  the  right  stuff."  She  knew  about  it  all : 
she  knew :  she  knew.  Many  Manchester  dramatic 
critics  were  themselves  writing  plays,  and  Miss  Horniman 
smiled  upon  them.  She  smiled  upon  Stanley  Houghton, 
Harold  Brighouse,  Allan  Monkhouse,  all  critics  of  The 
Manchester  Guardian.  She  would  have  smiled  upon  the 
plays  of  J.  E.  Agate  and  C.  E.  Montague  if  they  had 
written  any.  She  was  our  benefactress,  and  we  used  to 
sit  and  watch  her  in  her  embroidered  gown  as  she 
rather  self-consciously  queened  it  in  a  box  at  her  own 
theatre. 

Yet,  after  all,  she  had  a  rather  depressing  effect  upon 
the  city.  She  gave  no  new  play  that  was  perfectly 
beautiful.  She  appeared  to  detest  romance  and  had  little 
understanding  of  blank  verse.  Starting  her  public  life  as  a 
patron  of  Bernard  Shaw,  she  declined  upon  Shaw's  fevered 
disciples.  She  spoke  in  public  very  frequently,  and 
always  said  the  same  things.  She  had  all  the  enthusiasm 
of  a  clever  business  woman.  Wishing  very  much  to 
make  money  (so  she  told  us),  she  understood  all  the  arts 
of  self-advertisement.  But,  really,  Manchester  was  not 
the  place  for  her  ;  it  was  sufficiently  hard  and  provincial 
before  she  came 

But  perhaps  I  am  allowing  myself  to  run  away  with 
myself  in  writing  down  all  these  disagreeable  things. 
Yet  I  believe  them  to  be  true,  and  they  must  stand. 
Her  plays  gave  me  several  enjoyable  evenings  which, 
but  for  her,  I  should  never  have  had,  and  I  can  never  be 


PEOPLE  OF  THE  THEATRE         211 

too  grateful  to  her  for  restoring  to  the  Gaiety  Theatre 
the  drink  licence  that  the  Watch  Committee  had  taken 
away  some  years  before  she  came.  That  act,  at  all 
events,  did  in  some  degree  help  to  make  the  Manchester 
plays  a  little  less  like  Manchester  plays. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
BERLIN  AND  SOME  OF  ITS  PEOPLE 

ONE  winter,  about  ten  years  ago,  I  went  to  Berlin 
in  the  company  of  Mr  Frederick  Dawson,  the 
famous  English  pianist,  who  had  planned  to 
give  two  recitals  there.  We  stayed  at  the  Furstenhof,  a 
luxurious  and  enervating  hotel  where  we  had  a  suite  of 
rooms  facing  the  front.  In  the  large  drawing-room  that 
Karl  Klindworth  had  engaged  for  Dawson  was  a  good 
piano. 

Now,  music  in  Berlin  is  just  a  trade.  Everyone  plays 
or  sings  and  everybody  teaches  somebody  or  other  to 
play  and  sing.  Unless  you  are  an  artist  of  colossal 
merit  (and  sometimes  even  if  you  are),  you  will  find  it 
practically  impossible  to  persuade  anybody  to  listen 
to  you  if  you  are  not  prepared  to  "  square "  the 
critics.  In  the  season,  twenty,  thirty,  forty  concerts 
are  given  nightly,  and  by  far  the  greater  number  of  them 
are  given  to  empty  stalls.  That  does  not  matter  :  no 
artist  of  any  European  experience  expects  anything  else. 
A  musician  does  not  go  to  Berlin  to  get  money  :  he  goes 
to  get  a  reputation.  Berlin's  cachet  is  (or,  most  decidedly, 
I  should  say  was)  absolutely  indispensable  for  any  pianist, 
violinist  or  singer  who  wishes  to  make  a  permanent  and 
wide  reputation.  Before  the  war,  Mr  Snooks  could  play 
as  hard  and  as  fiercely  and  as  long  in  London  as  he  liked, 
but  unless  he  was  known  in  Berlin,  and  unless  it  was 
known  that  he  was  known  in  Berlin,  he  was  everywhere 
considered  but  as  a  second-rate  kind  of  person,  a  mere 
talented  outsider.     So  that  it  is  quite  within  the  facts 

212 


BERLIN  AND  SOME  OF  ITS  PEOPLE     213 

to  say  that  few  artists  have  gone  to  sing  or  play  in  Berlin 
except  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  Press  notices,  favour- 
able Press  notices,  Press  notices  that  glow  with  praise 
and  reek  of  backstairs  influence.  An  American,  a  French 
or  a  Danish  artist  will  go  to  Berlin  with  a  few  years' 
savings,  give  a  short  series  of  recitals,  cut  his  Press  notices 
from  the  papers,  go  back  to  his  native  land,  and  then 
advertise  freely — his  advertisements,  of  course,  consisting 
of  judicious  excerpts  (not  always  very  literally  translated) 
from  his  Berlin  notices.  This  visit  to  Berlin,  with  the 
hire  of  a  concert  hall,  etc.,  may  cost  a  couple  of 
hundred  pounds,  but  it  is  counted  money  well  spent,  well 
invested. 

Frederick  Dawson  had  already  paid  several  visits  to 
Berlin  and  Vienna,  and  was  so  well  known  in  both  cities 
that  his  appearance  in  either  always  attracted  large  and 
enthusiastic  audiences  ;  but,  apart  from  Dawson  himself, 
d'Albert  and  Lamond,  no  other  British  artist  or  semi- 
British  artist  had,  I  imagine,  the  power  to  do  so. 

I  was  introduced  to  many  critics  and  many  artists. 
The  critic  was  almost  invariably  a  Herr  Doktor  and  the 
Herr  Doktor  was  almost  invariably  a  Herr  Professor  : 
they  all  had  degrees  and  they  all  taught.  They  were 
overworked,  ''  doing  "  five  or  six  concerts  a  night  and 
receiving  very  little  pay.  They  would  dash  about  from 
one  concert  hall  to  another  in  taxi-cabs,  jot  down  a  few 
notes,  and  look  down  their  noses  ;  when  they  wished  to 
leave  a  particular  hall,  they  would  look  round  furtively, 
gather  their  coat-tails  together,  and  sidle  slimly  or  roll 
fatly  to  the  door. 

Some  of  these  gentlemen,  I  heard,  were  very  shady 
in  their  dealings  with  young  and  inexperienced  artists. 
They  plied  a  trade  of  gentle  blackmail,  kid-gloved  black- 
mail, of  course,  but  the  kid  gloves  contained  the  claws 
of  a  hungry  eagle.  The  following  describes  one  of  their 
pretty  little  customs. 


214  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

Hearing  of  the  arrival  in  Berlin  of  a  singer  or  pianist 
whose  agent  had  been  advertising  the  fact  that  his  client 
would  shortly  give  a  series  of  three  recitals,  the  critic 
would  call  upon  him,  express  interest  in  his  work,  and 
ask  to  have  the  pleasure  of  hearing  the  artist  sing  or 
play.  The  artist,  flattered  and  already  sure  of  one  good 
"  notice  "  at  least,  would  immediately  accede  ;  having 
done  his  best  or  worst,  something  like  the  following 
conversation  would  take  place  : — 

Critic.  Quite  good.  But  that  A-minor  study  of 
Chopin's  is,  of  course,  rather  hackneyed  ;  you  are  not, 
I  presume,  including  it  in  any  of  your  programmes  ? 

Artist  {rather  taken  aback).  I  must  confess  I  had 
intended  doing  so.     But  if  you  think  .  .  . 

Critic.  I  do.  Most  decidedly  I  do.  There  are  in 
Berlin  at  least  ten  thousand  people  who  play  it ;  why 
should  you  be  the  ten  thousand  and  first  ?  Debussy, 
now.  Why  not  Debussy  ?  Or  even  Busoni.  Busoni 
can  write,  you  know. 

Artist  (eagerly).  Yes,  yes  ;  I'm  playing  some  Debussy  : 
Les  Poissons  d'Or  and  Clair  de  Lune. 

Critic.  Clair  de  Lune  is  a  little  vieux  jeu,  don't 
you  think  ?     However,  play  it.     Play  it  now,  I  mean. 

The  artist,  half  angry,  but  tremulously  anxious  to 
please,  does  as  he  is  told. 

Critic.  Oh  yes  ;  you  have  talent.  I  think,  yes,  I 
rather  think  I  shall  be  able  to  praise  you  in  my  paper. 
However,  we  shall  see.  But  there  is  something,  just  a 
little  of  something,  lacking  in  your  style.  Your  rhythm 
is  not  sufficiently  fluid.  It  should,  if  I  may  say  so,  sway 
more.  And  your  use  of  tempo  rubato.  .  .  .  Well,  now, 
I  could  show  you.  You  see,  I  have  heard  Debussy  him- 
self play  that,  and  I  know  pre-cise-ly  how  it  should  go. 

Artist  (absolutely  staggered).  Oh  .  .  .  er  .  .  .  yes. 
Quite. 

Critic  (having  allowed  time  for  his  remarks  to  sink  in). 


BERLIN  AND  SOME   OF  ITS  PEOPLE     215 

Now  what  would  you  say  if  I  were  to  suggest  that  I 
give  you  a  few  lessons — say  a  couple.  I  would  charge 
you  a  guinea  and  a  half  each  :  lessons  of  half-an-hour, 
you  know. 

Artist  (looking  wildly  round).  If  you  were  to 
suggest  such  a  thing — of  course,  you  haven't  done  so  yet 
— but  if  you  were  to  suggest  it  .  .  . 

Critic  (with  most  un-German  suavity).  Of  course, 
when  I  said  "  lessons,"  I  used  entirely  the  wrong  word. 
What  I  meant  was  hints  and  suggestions.  Mere  indica- 
tions. A  passing  on  of  a  tradition — passing  it  on,  you 
understand,  from  Debussy  to  yourself.  Not  everyone, 
I  need  scarcely  say,  has  heard  Debussy  play.  If  you  were 
to  play  Debussy  as  I  know  he  should  be  played,  you 
would  be  one  of  the  first  to  do  so  in  Berlin,  and  I  in  my 
paper  should  record  the  fact. 

Artist.     I  see.     Yes,  I  do  see.     I  think  that  perhaps 
you  are  right.     You  believe  I  could — I  am  rather  at  a 
loss    for    a   word — you    believe    I    could,    shall    we    say 
'  absorb,"  the  tradition  in  a  couple  of  lessons  ? 

Critic.  I  don't  see  why  you  shouldn't,  though,  of 
course,  I  may  decide — I  mean,  we  may  agree — that  a 
third  lesson  is  necessary.  Shall  we  have  our  first  lesson 
now  ? 

Artist  (now  quite  at  his  ease,  slyly).  Lesson  ?  You 
mean  my  first  '  hint,"  '  suggestion,"  "  indication." 
Right-o.  .  .  .  Let's  get  along  with  it. 

They  are  friends  :  they  understand  each  other.  Within 
twenty-four  hours  three  guineas  pass  from  the  pocket  of 
the  artist  to  the  pocket  of  the  critic,  and,  in  due  time, 
half-a-dozen  lines  of  praise,  golden-guinea  praise,  appear 
in  the  critic's  paper. 

After  all,  how  simple,  how  friendly,  how  altogether 
right  and  jovial  ! 

You  may  think  the  artist  a  fool  to  pay  so  much  for 
so  little,  but,  really,  you  are  quite  wrong.     It  isn't  "  so 


216  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

little."  It  is  a  good  deal.  Those  half-dozen  lines,  in 
the  old  pre-war  days,  would  help  to  secure  valuable 
engagements  not  only  in  New  York,  Boston,  Philadelphia, 
Chicago,  and  the  scores  of  large  towns  that  lie  in  be- 
tween, but  also  in  London,  Manchester,  Bradford,  Leeds  ; 
in  Paris,  Lyons,  Rouen,  Marseilles,  Bordeaux,  Brussels, 
Ghent,  Antwerp.  But  not  in  Germany.  Germany  knows 
better.  Not  in  Mannheim,  Cologne,  Hanover,  Dresden. 
The  secrets  of  Berlin  were  known  in  all  the  cities  and 
towns  of  Germany  some  years  before  the  war,  and  the 
playful  little  habits  of  the  critics  of  that  most  wonderful 
city  were  looked  at  askance  .  .  .  were  looked  at  askance 
.  .  .  were  looked  at  askance  and  imitated.  And  the 
imitators  had  for  their  secret  motto  :  Honi  soit. 

A  beastly  city  was  Berlin.  And  yet  not  all  of  Berlin 
was  beastly.  But  the  artistic,  the  musical,  part  of  it  was 
"  low,  very  low,"  as  Chawnley  Montague  said,  on  an 
historic  occasion,  of  the  slums  of  Sierra  Leone. 

But  Karl  Klindworth  had  nothing  of  beastliness  in  him. 
In  writing  about  Klindworth  I  shall,  I  am  convinced, 
feel  rather  old,  and  you,  when  reading  about  him,  will, 
I  greatly  fear,  also  feel  rather  old.  You  see  Klindworth 
belongs  so  awfully  to  the  past.  Yet  he  was  a  very  great 
man  in  his  day,  and  there  must  be  still  in  London  many 
people  who  knew  him  in  those  silly,  savage  days  when 
stupid  people  (and  they  were  brutally  stupid)  thought 
of  Wagner  what  brutally  stupid  people  think  to-day  of 
Richard  Strauss. 

Klindworth  was  not  only  a  disciple  of  Wagner's  but 
he  was  also  one  of  Wagner's  prophets  :  a  forerunner. 
A  great  pianist,  also  :  a  great  conductor  :  a  great  man. 
Frederick  Dawson,  one  of  the  most  generous-hearted  of 
men,  took  me  to  Klindworth's,  and  said  some  jolly, 
flattering  things  about  me  to  the  great  musician.  Klind- 
worth was  very  old,  about  eighty  years,  and,  when  he 


BERLIN  AND  SOME  OF  ITS  PEOPLE     217 

spoke,  it  was  like  listening  to  the  voice  of  a  man  who 
had  just  got  beyond  the  grave  and  was  not  unhappy 
there. 

I  egged  him  on  to  speak  of  Wagner. 

"  What  can  I  say  ?  "  he  mused.  "  Nothing.  Wagner 
was  from  God." 

His  large  eyes,  two  great  ponds  of  colour  in  a  face  not 
white  but  stained  with  ivory,  smouldered  and  suddenly 
burst  into  flame.  His  hands,  always  trembling  a  little, 
now  shook  rather  violently.  I  could  not  help  feeling,  as 
I  gazed  upon  this  old  man,  that  Wagner  lived  in  him 
as  strongly  as  he  lives  in  the  mighty  scores  of  Die 
Meister singer  and  Tristan  und  Isolde. 

We  sat  silent.  Frau  Klind worth,  an  Englishwoman 
speaking  English  most  charmingly  with  a  foreign  accent, 
folded  her  hands  and  gave  a  little  sigh.  Dawson  shot 
me  a  significant  look  which  meant :  '  Keep  quiet ;  if  you 
do,  he  will  begin  to  talk." 

And  for  a  little  while  he  did.  Without  a  gesture, 
without  a  movement,  Klindworth,  looking  with  un- 
focussed  eyes  into  space,  began  to  talk.  (He  spoke  in 
English,  for  he  knew  that  I  knew  very  little  German.) 

"  No  one,"  said  he,  "  who  was  a  gentleman,  I  mean 
no  one  who  had  ordinary  feelings  of  chivalry,  could  meet 
Wagner  without  feeling  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of 
one  of  the  Kings  of  our  world.  Certain  people,  both  in 
England  and  Germany,  have  written  stupid  things  of  him  ; 
they  have  pointed  fingers  at  his  faults,  banged  their  fists 
upon  his  sins.  I  hate  those  people.  Faults  and  sins  ? 
Who  has  not  faults  ?  Who  has  not  committed  sins  ? 
You  English  have  a  word  '  uncanny.'  Or  is  it  you 
Scottish  people  ?  Wagner  was  uncanny.  He  dived 
into  things.  Yes,  he  dived.  And  every  time  he  lost 
his  body  in  the  blue  sea,  he  brought  back  a  pearl.  A 
pearl  ?  No  :  pearls  have  no  mystery.  He  brought  back, 
each  time,  a  hitherto  undiscovered  gem.   .   .   .     Gem  '  ! 


218  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

What  silly  sounds  you  have  in  English.  .  .  .  Jem.  .  .  . 
Djem  !  "  ' 

His  old  mind,  outworn  and  very  weary,  appeared  to 
cease  its  functioning.  He  sat  with  no  sign  of  life  in  him. 
It  was  as  though  a  clock  had  stopped,  as  though  a  light 
had  gone  out.  And  then,  without  any  apparent  cause, 
he  came  to  life  again. 

"  Let  us  go  to  the  piano,"  he  said,  rising. 

So  we  left  the  little  room  in  which  we  were  sitting  and 
moved  to  the  large  music-room  at  the  far  end  of  which  was 
a  grand  piano.  Frau  Klindworth,  Dawson  and  I  sat  in 
the  semi-darkness  near  the  door  ;  Klindworth's  tall  but 
rather  shrunken  figure  moved  down  the  room  to  the  little 
light  that  hung  above  the  keyboard.  He  played  some 
almost  unknown  pieces  of  Liszt,  interpreting  them  in  a 
style  at  once  noble  and  half-ruined.  The  excitement 
of  playing  seemed  to  increase  rather  than  add  strength 
to  his  physical  weakness,  and  many  wrong  notes  were 
struck. 

It  was  very  pathetic  to  see  this  old  man  trying  to 
revive  the  fires  within  him,  trying  and  failing  ;  and  I 
felt  that  if,  by  some  miraculous  effort,  he  had  succeeded, 
if  the  ashes  of  long-spent  fires  had  indeed  broken  into  hot 
flame,  his  frail  body  would  have  been  consumed. 

He  gave  me  his  photograph  and  wrote  on  the  back 
some  message,  and  when  I  left  him  I  thought  I  should 
never  see  him  again.  But,  a  few  days  later,  I  saw  him  in 
the  front  row  of  one  of  Frederick  Dawson's  recitals,  and 
I  occasionally  heard  from  him  a  deep-noted  "  Bravo  !  " 
as  Dawson  electrified  us  with  one  of  his  stupendous 
performances. 

Klindworth  lingered  on  for  some  years  later  and,  when  I 
was  in  Macedonia  last  j^ear,  I  saw  in  some  newspaper  a  few 
lines  recording  his  death.  In  the  seventies  he  was  a  great 
figure  in  London,  and  Wagner-worshippers  of  those  days 
worshipped  Klindworth  also,  not  only  for  his  genius,  but 


BERLIN  AND  SOME  OF  ITS  PEOPLE     219 

also  for  his  loyalty,  his  noble-mindedness,  his  devotion 
to  his  art. 

•  •••  •••  c 

Out  of  curiosity  on  the  last  day  of  my  stay  in  Berlin, 
I  went  to  a  famous  concert  agent's  office,  ostensibly  to 
make  some  business  inquiries,  but,  in  reality,  to  have  a 
look  at  the  underworld  of  art ;  for  the  business  side  of 
all  art  has  almost  invariably  an  underworld  of  its  own  in 
which  there  is  much  irony  and  in  which  dwells  a  spirit 
of  strangely  sardonic  humour. 

The  office  was  crowded  with  artists,  most  of  them 
prosperous,  all  of  them  of  recognised  position.  Though 
they  were  clients  of  the  agent — that  is  to  say,  people 
able  and  eager  to  engage  his  services  and  pay  handsomely 
for  them — they  were  kept  waiting  an  unconscionable  time, 
as  though  they  had  come  to  beg  favours.  As,  indeed, 
they  had.  For  Herr  Otto  Zuggstein  always  made  it 
perfectly  clear  by  his  manner  that  the  favour  was  his  to 
confer,  the  honour  yours  to  accept.  He  had  a  hot,  eager 
brain,  cunning  hands  and  hairy  wrists. 

And  his  work,  his  object  in  life  ?  Well,  he  was  the 
connecting-link  between  the  artist  and  the  public,  just 
as  a  publisher  is  the  connecting-link  between  authors  and 
those  who  read.  Otto  Zuggstein  "  published  ':  pianists, 
singers,  violinists.  He  engaged  concert  halls  for  them, 
sold  their  tickets  and  collected  the  money,  printed  their 
programmes,  distributed  tickets  to  the  Press,  advertised 
their  recitals,  and  so  on.  There  are,  of  course,  many  such 
men,  men  engaged  honourably  in  an  honourable  pro- 
fession, in  all  the  big  cities  of  Europe  ;  but  Zuggstein 
was  steeped  in  dishonour.  It  was  freely  said  of  him  that 
he  had  all  the  powerful  music  critics  of  Berlin  in  the 
hollow  of  his  hand.  Instead  of  working  for  their  respective 
editors  they  really  worked  for  him.  He  could  command 
a  long  and  enthusiastic  "  notice  "  about  almost  any  artist 
in  almost  any  paper  ;  he  could  also  secure  the  publication 


220  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

of  the  most  damning  criticisms.  If  you  were  a  really- 
great  artist  desiring  to  '  succeed  "  in  Berlin  and  he,  or 
his  friends,  considered  it  against  his  own  and  his  friends' 
interest  for  you  to  succeed,  he  could  and  would  prevent 
you  doing  so. 

He  occasionally  emerged  from  the  inner  room  in  which 
he  sat,  moved  among  us  for  a  minute  or  so,  exchanging 
handshakes,  smiles  and  other  insincerities,  and,  singling 
out  a  man  or  a  woman  with  special  business  claims  upon 
him,  returned  with  his  companion  to  his  private  office. 
As  he  disappeared,  some  of  those  who  waited  smiled 
significantly  at  each  other. 

Zuggstein,  as  one  used  to  write  three  or  four  years 
ago,  "  intrigued  "  me.  He  was  such  an  efficient  rogue  : 
a  rogue  working,  as  it  appeared,  most  openly,  most 
flagrantly,  but  in  reality  working  with  an  abundance  of 
prepared  camouflage. 

I  waited  most  patiently  and,  in  the  course  of  time, 
when  he  again  issued  from  his  private  sanctum,  he  queried 
me  with  his  right  eyebrow,  beckoned  me  almost  im- 
perceptibly with  his  left  elbow  and,  preceding  me,  made 
a  gangway  to  his  room.  I  followed  him  with  an  air, 
recognising,  as  I  did  so,  that  I  was  in  for  a  bit  of  an 
adventure,  and  resolved  to  lie  like  poor  Beelzebub  himself. 

'  Good-morning,"  said  he  in  English  when  the  door 
was  closed  upon  us.  '  Will  you  take  a  chair  and  also 
a  cigar  ?  '  Mysteriously,  he  produced  a  box  from  the 
region  of  his  knees  and  looked  hard  at  me.  "  And  a 
whisky  ? "  he  added,  with  a  smile.  "  I  never  drink 
myself,"  he  apologised,  "  but  you  English  !  " 

I  accepted  all  three  invitations. 

"  I  have  come,"  said  I,  when  I  had  lit  my  cigar  and 
savoured  it,  "I  have  come  to  see  you  about  half-a-dozen 
recitals,  piano  recitals,  that  a  Norwegian  friend  of  mine 
wishes  to  give  here  in  Berlin  next  January." 

"  To  whom,"  asked  he — and  a  little  chill  descended 


BERLIN  AND  SOME  OF  ITS  PEOPLE     221 

upon  him  as  he  asked  the  question — "  to  whom  have  I  the 
honour  of  speaking  ?  " 

I  smiled  deprecatingly,  and  produced  from  my  card- 
case  a  card  bearing  the  name  "  Gerald  Cumberland." 

"  I  am  staying  at  the  Fiirstenhof.     Room  4001." 

Disarmed,  but  still  cautious,  he  wrote  the  number  of 
my  room  on  the  pasteboard. 

"  I  am,  I  think  it  is  obvious,  from  England.  This  is 
my  first  visit  to  your  great  city.  I  am  interested  in  art, 
in  music."  I  used  a  careless,  all-embracing  gesture. 
"  And  my  Norwegian  friend,  Mr  Sigurd  Falk,  knowing 
that  I  was  about  to  set  out  for  Berlin,  asked  me  to  try 
to  arrange  certain  matters  with  you.  He  got  your  name 
from  a  compatriot  of  his." 

By  this  time  he  had  poured  out,  and  I  had  drunk  most 
of,  the  whisky.  A  peculiar  thing  happened  :  whilst  it  was 
I  who  drank  the  whisky,  it  was  he  who  became  genial — 
more  than  genial :   almost  friendly. 

"  What,"  he  inquired,  "  does  your  friend  wish  to  do  in 
Berlin  ?  " 

"  Play  the  piano  and  make  a  little  money." 

He  grunted  sympathetically,  if  a  man  may  ever  be  said 
to  grunt  sympathetically. 

"  Money  is  difficult  to  make  in  Berlin,"  he  said,  looking 
at  me  keenly,  "  but  I  will  do  my  best  for  him.  Six 
recitals,  you  say  ?  " 

"  Six.  And  at  this,  our  first  interview,  I  wished  to 
have  just  a  rough  estimate  of  what  those  six  recitals  are 
likely  to  cost." 

"  Why,  it  all  depends.  .  .  .  Another  whisky  ?  .  .  . 
No  ?  ...  It  all  depends.  Depends  on  all  kinds  of  things. 
What  hall  do  you  want  ?  I  ought,  perhaps,  to  tell  you, 
first  of  all,  what  hall  you  can  have  :  you  see,  you  come 
rather  late,  very  late,  in  the  day.  It  is  now  November, 
and  your  friend  wishes  to  play  in  January.  All  the  halls 
are  usually  booked  months  in  advance." 


222  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

We  went  into  particulars  of  halls,  dates,  etc.  And 
then  he  began  to  scribble  figures  on  a  sheet  of  paper. 

"  Press  ?  "  he  queried. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  ?  " 

"  You  would,  I  mean  your  friend  would,  I  imagine,  like 
a  favourable  Press  ?  " 

"  Why,  yes." 

"  Audience  ?  " 

"  Do  you  mean  any  kind  of  audience  ?  " 

"  I  am  afraid  they  will  be  mostly  women,  though,  of 
course,  I  can  get  you  a  certain  number  of  male  students. 
But  the  audience,  I  can  promise  you,  will  be  well  disposed. 
Three  or  four  encores  at  least." 

"  Yes,  then,  both  Press  and  audience." 

He  scribbled  a  little  more. 

"  An  inclusive  estimate  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Please.     You  mean  by  inclusive  .  .  .  ?  ' 

"  Everything,"  he  said  impressively  ;  ''  the  hall,  the 
printing,  the  advertisements,  a  few  invitations,  the 
preliminary  paragraphs,  the  audience,  the  critics'  articles. 
And  not  only  the  critics'  notices,  but  the  presence  of  the 
critics  themselves,"  he  added. 

He  worked  hard  for  five  minutes,  looked  up  data  in 
books,  and  at  length  very  gently  pushed  over  to  me,  across 
the  shining  top  of  the  table,  a  properly  written  out  estimate 
for  the  recitals  my  imaginary  friend  intended  to  give. 
The  total  amount,  as  represented  by  English  money,  was 
£325. 

"  Thank  you  so  much,"  said  I ;  'I  will  call  to  see  you 
to-morrow  perhaps.  But  I  must  first  of  all  get  an  estimate 
from  Herr  Dorn." 

"  Who  is  Herr  Dorn  ?  "  he  asked,  in  surprise. 

I  did  not  know  :  his  name  had  slid  into  my  mind  that 
very  moment,  and  I  was  not  quite  sure  whether,  in  the 
whole  world,  there  was  such  a  name.  Then,  greatly 
daring,  I  greatly  lied. 


BERLIN  AND  SOME  OF  ITS  PEOPLE      223 

"  He  is  a  cousin  of  Sigurd  Falk,"  said  I. 
As  I  left,  he  gave  me  another  cigar,  shook  my  hand 
most  warmly,  and  looked  me  in  the  eyes  very  keenly. 

•  ••••••• 

Every  night  Dawson  and  I  used  to  go  either  to  the 
opera  or  to  some  concert,  and,  when  the  music  was 
finished,  which  was  generally  very  late,  we  would  perhaps 
go  to  some  supper-party  or  other. 

I  have  a  good  appetite  myself,  but  really  some  of  the 
German  ladies'  gastronomic  feats  were  superb.  I  remember 
myself  one  night  sitting  fascinated  and  awestruck  as  I 
saw  a  Wagner-heroine  type  of  woman,  full-breasted,  high- 
browed  and  majestic,  eat  plateful  after  plateful  of  oysters, 
until  I  began  to  wonder  how  it  was  so  many  oysters  came 
to  be  in  Berlin  at  one  and  the  same  time. 

Elena  Gerhardt,  in  those  days,  was  large,  white  and 
serene.  She  was  a  little  bitter,  perhaps,  and  certainly 
greatly  disappointed.  I  met  her  in  Manchester  shortly 
after  my  return  to  England,  and  found  her  mind  insipid, 
her  soul  tepid. 

•  •••*••• 

Egon  Petri  had  phlegm  almost  British  :  a  real  slogger  : 
most  uninspired  :  the  possessor  of  faultless  technique  : 
the  possessor  of  a  brain  that  retained  everything  but 
expounded  nothing.  He  had  business  ability  and  pushed 
ahead  all  the  time  :  pushed  ahead  all  the  time,  but  never 
arrived  anywhere.  Never  will  arrive  anywhere  in  par- 
ticular, except  at  his  own  well-cleaned  doorstep,  where  the 
polished  knocker  will  respond  to  his  carefully  gloved  hand. 

Richard  Strauss  I  also  met  in  Manchester  at  about  the 
same  time.  I  have  always  maintained  that,  in  at  least 
one  case  out  of  three,  it  is  unwise  to  judge  a  man  by  his 
face. 

But  I  must  for  a  moment  digress.     This  question  of 


224  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

faces  is  most  interesting.  Every  man,  of  course,  makes 
his  own  face  :  even  the  most  ugly  of  us  will  concede  that 
much,  for,  if  we  are,  and  know  we  are,  ugly,  we  always 
console  ourselves  with  the  thought :  "  Yes,  but  it  is  a 
special  kind  of  ugliness.  There  is  strength  in  my  ugliness. 
There  is  character  ;  there  is  soul.  My  ugliness  is  original. 
There  is  no  ugliness  quite  like  my  ugliness."  For,  so  long 
as  we  are  different  from  other  people,  that  is  all  that 
matters.  Now,  in  making  our  faces — a  process  that  is 
always  continuous  from  the  time  we  are  born  to  the  moment 
of  death — some  of  us  are  full  of  anxiety  to  make,  not  a 
face,  but  a  mask.  Our  faces  do  not  express  our  souls  : 
they  hide  them.  The  consequence  of  this  is  that  you  will 
sometimes,  though  not  often,  meet  a  man  with  a  mean, 
insignificant  face  who  is,  in  reality,  the  possessor  of  a 
first-rate  brain.  But  it  is  difficult  to  repress  some  facial 
hint  of  intellect ;  try  how  one  may,  one  can  do  little 
to  modify  the  shape  of  one's  brow  or  give  the  eye  a  sodden 
and  unintelligent  look. 

Richard  Strauss  has  disguised  himself.  At  close 
quarters  one  sees  at  once  that  his  head  is  both  shapely 
and  well  poised  :  one  notices  the  exceptionally  high  fore- 
head, the  firm  rounded  lips,  the  determined  chin.  "  A 
financier,"  you  say  to  yourself ;  "at  all  events,  if  not  a 
financier,  a  man  of  affairs,  a  man  accustomed  to  deal  with 
and  order  facts.  Certainly  not  a  dreamer — not  a  poet 
or  a  musician  or  an  artist  of  any  kind." 

He  exhibits  no  emotion.  Self-restrained,  he  speaks 
little  but  very  much  to  the  point.  Even  in  moments  of 
great  success,  he  is  reserved  and  businesslike.  You  can 
never  take  him  unawares.  He  is  guarded,  on  the  alert, 
watchful.  '  All  mind  but  no  heart,"  you  say  ;  at  least, 
you  say  that  if  you  are  a  careless  observer. 

His  tastes  are  of  the  simplest  and  though,  for  a  com- 
poser, he  has  amassed  a  large  amount  of  money,  he  is 
absurdly  economical.     He  rather  likes  abuse,  and  when 


BERLIN  AND  SOME  OF  ITS  PEOPLE     225 

a  critic  makes  a  fool  of  himself  he  is  inordinately 
amused.  The  spectacle  of  human  vanity  and  human  folly 
excites  him.     His  handshake  is  firm,  his  regard  direct. 

His  piano-playing  is  beautifully  neat  and  polished,  but 
he  is  not  a  virtuoso  on  the  instrument. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
SOME  MUSICIANS 

Edvard  Grieg — Sir  Frederick  H.  Cowen — Dr  Hans  Richter — Sir 
Thomas  Beecham — Sir  Charles  Santley — Landon  Ronald- 
Frederic  Austin 

VERY  many  years  have  passed  since,  one  cold 
winter's  afternoon,  I  met  Edvard  Grieg  on 
Adolph  Brodsky's  doorstep.  A  little  figure  buried, 
very  deeply  buried,  in  an  overcoat  at  least  six  inches  thick, 
came  down  the  damp  street,  paused  a  minute  at  the  gate, 
and  then,  rather  hesitatingly,  walked  up  the  pathway. 
He  saluted  me  as  he  reached  the  door  and  we  waited 
together  until  my  summons  to  those  within  was  answered. 
I  found  him  very  homely,  completely  without  affecta- 
tion, childlike,  and  a  little  melancholy.  He  was  at  that 
time  in  indifferent  health,  and  it  was  at  once  made  evident 
to  me  that  both  Grieg  himself  and  those  around  him — 
especially  Mrs  Brodsky — were  very  anxious  that  he 
should  be  restored  to  complete  fitness.  He  said  nothing 
in  the  least  degree  noteworthy,  but  when  he  did  speak 
he  had  such  a  gentle  air,  a  manner  so  ingratiating  and 
simple,  that  one  found  his  conversation  most  unusually 
pleasant. 

Ernest  Newman  once  called  Grieg  "  Griegkin,"  a  most 
admirable  name  for  this  quite  first-rate  of  third-rate 
composers.  His  music  is  diminutive.  He  could  not 
think  largely.  He  loved  country  dances,  country  scenes, 
the  rhythm  of  homely  life,  the  bounded  horizon.  Even 
so  extended  a  work  as  his  Pianoforte  Concerto  is  a  series 
of  miniatures.     And    Grieg  the  man  was  precisely  like 

226 


SOME  MUSICIANS  227 

Grieg  the  artist.  He  was  Griegkin  in  his  appearance, 
his  manner,  his  way  of  speaking  :  a  little  man  :  a  gracious 
little  man.  His  attitude  towards  his  host  and  hostess 
was  that  of  an  affectionate  child.  Such  dear  simplicity 
is,  I  think,  in  the  artist  found  only  among  men  of  northern 
races. 

Some  years  later,  in  an  intimate  little  circle,  I  was 
to  hear  his  widow  sing  and  play  many  of  her  husband's 
songs.  She  was  the  feminine  counterpart  of  himself — 
spirited,  a  little  sad,  simple  yet  wise,  frank,  and  an  artist 
through  and  through. 

•  •*••••• 

A  great  deal  of  comedy  is  lost  to  the  world  through 
lack  of  historians.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  conceive 
that  Sir  F.  H.  Cowen  should  ever  have  been  in  serious 
competition  with  Hans  Richter  :  impossible  to  conceive 
that  half  the  musical  inhabitants  of  a  large  city  should 
have  been  ranged  fiercely  on  Sir  Frederick's  side,  and  the 
other  half  ranged  on  the  side  of  Richter  :  impossible  to 
conceive  that  both  Cowen  and  Richter  were  candidates 
for  the  same  post.     Yet  so  it  was. 

Sir  Charles  Halle,  who  had  founded  and  conducted 
for  about  half-a-century  the  famous  orchestral  concerts 
in  Manchester  still  known  by  his  name,  died  and  left  no 
successor.  Literally,  there  was  no  one  to  appoint  in  his 
place,  no  one  quite  good  enough.  Month  after  month 
went  by,  a  good  many  distinguished  and  semi-distinguished 
musicians  came  to  Manchester  and  conducted  an  odd  con- 
cert or  two,  but  it  was  very  widely  felt  that  no  British 
musician  would  do.  Sir  Frederick  Cowen,  always  an 
earnest  and  accomplished  composer,  came  for  a  season 
or  two  and  did  some  admirable  work,  but  Cowen  was 
not  Halle.  Then  the  German  element  in  Manchester  dis- 
covered that  Richter  would  come,  if  invited.  The  salary 
was  large,  the  work  not  heavy,  the  climate  awful,  the 
people   devoted,   the   position   unusually   powerful.     All 


228  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

things  considered,  it  was  one  of  the  few  really  good  vacant 
musical  posts  in  Europe. 

All  this  is  ancient  history  now,  and  I  will  record  only 
briefly  that  ultimately  Sir  Frederick  Cowen  was,  in  effect, 
told  (what,  no  doubt,  he  already  knew)  that  Richter  was 
the  better  man  and  that  he  (Cowen)  must  go.  But  before 
this  decision  was  made  a  most  severe  fight  was  waged  in 
the  city.  Cowen  conducted,  and  thousands  of  partisans 
came  and  cheered  him  to  the  echo.  Richter  conducted, 
and  thousands  of  partisans  came  and  cheered  him  to  the 
echo.  People  wrote  to  the  newspapers.  Leader  writers 
solemnly  summed  up  the  situation  from  day  to  day. 
Protests  were  made,  meetings  were  organised  and  held, 
votes  of  confidence  were  passed.  London  caught  the 
infection,  and  passed  its  opinion,  its  opinions.  .  .  . 

Sir  F.  H.  Cowen  (he  was  "  Mr  "  then)  received  me  in 
his  rooms  at  the  Manchester  Grand  Hotel.  It  was  im- 
possible not  to  like  him,  for,  if  he  had  no  great  positive 
qualities  that  seized  upon  you  at  once,  he  had  a  good 
many  negative  ones.  He  had  no  "  side,"  no  self-import- 
ance, no  eccentricities.  He  had  neither  long  hair  nor  a 
foreign  accent.  He  did  not  use  a  cigarette-holder.  He 
did  not  loll  when  he  sat  down,  or  posture  when  he  stood 
up.  And  he  had  not  just  discovered  a  new  composer  of 
Dutch  extraction.  .  .  .  These  are  small  things,  you  say. 
But  are  they  ?  .  .  . 

I  remember  looking  at  him  and  wondering  if  he  really 
had  written  The  Better  Land.  It  seemed  so  unlikely. 
Faultlessly  dressed,  immaculately  groomed,  how  could 
he  have  written  The  Better  Land — that  luteous  land  that 
is  so  sloppy,  so  thickly  covered  with  untidy  debris  ? 

He  would  not  talk  of  the  musical  situation  in  Manchester, 
and  I  could  see  that  he  was  very  sensitive  about  his  un- 
comfortable position. 

"  If  I  am  wanted,  I  shall  stay,"  was  all  he  would  give 
me. 


SOME  MUSICIANS  229 

'  And  are  you  going  to  write  about  me  in  the  paper  ?  ' 
asked  he,  at  the  end  of  our  interview  ;     '  how  interesting 
that  will  be  !  "     And  he  smiled  with  gentle  satire. 

'  I  shall  make  it  as  interesting  as  I  can,"  I  assured 
him,  "  but,  you  see,  you  have  said  so  little." 

'  Does  that  matter  ?  "  he  returned.  "  I  have  always 
heard  that  you  gentlemen  of  the  Press  can  at  least — 
shall  we  say  embroider  ?  " 

"  But  may  I  ?  "  I  asked. 

'  How  can  I  prevent  you  ?  Do  tell  me  how  I  can,  and 
I  will." 

'  Well,  you  can  insist  upon  seeing  the  article  before  it 
appears  in  print." 

"  Oh,  '  insist  '  is  not  a  nice  word,  is  it  ?  But  if  you 
would  be  kind  enough  to  send  me  the  article  before  your 
Editor  has  it  .  .  ." 

•  ••••••• 

Hans  Richtcr  was  an  autocrat,  a  tyrant.  During  the 
years  he  conducted  in  Manchester,  he  did  much  splendid 
work,  but  it  may  well  be  questioned  if,  on  the  whole, 
his  influence  was  beneficial  to  Manchester  citizens.  He 
was  so  tremendously  German  !  So  tremendously  German 
indeed,  that  he  refused  to  recognise  that  there  was  any 
other  than  Teutonic  music  in  the  world.  His  intellect 
had  stopped  at  Wagner.  At  middle  age  his  mind  had 
suddenly  become  set,  and  he  looked  with  contempt  at  all 
Italian  and  French  music,  refusing  also  to  see  any  merit 
in  most  of  the  very  fine  music  that,  during  the  last  twenty 
years,  has  been  written  by  British  composers. 

He  irked  the  younger  and  more  turbulent  spirits  in 
Manchester,  and  we  were  constantly  attacking  him  in  the 
Press.  But  with  no  effect.  Richter  was  like  that.  He 
ignored  attacks.  He  was  arrogant  and  spoiled  and  bad- 
tempered. 

"  Why  don't  you  occasionally  give  us  some  French 
music  at  your  concerts  ?  "  he  was  asked. 


230  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

"  French  music  ?  "  he  roared  ;    "  there  is  no   French 


music." 


And,  certainly,  whenever  he  tried  to  play  even  Berlioz 
one  could  see  that  he  did  not  regard  his  work  as  music. 
And  he  conducted  Debussy,  so  to  speak,  with  his  fists. 
And  as  for  Dukas  .   .   .  ! 

Young  British  musicians  used  to  send  him  their 
compositions  to  read,  but  the  parcels  would  come  back, 
weeks  later,  unread  and  unopened.  His  mind  never 
inquired.  His  intellect  lay  indolent  and  half-asleep  on 
a  bed  of  spiritual  down.  And  the  thousands  of  musical 
Germans  in  Manchester  treated  him  so  like  a  god  that 
in  course  of  time  he  came  to  believe  he  was  a  god.  His 
manners  were  execrable.  On  one  occasion,  he  bore  down 
upon  me  in  a  corridor  at  the  back  of  the  platform  in  the 
Free  Trade  Hall.  I  stood  on  one  side  to  allow  him  to  pass, 
but  Richter  was  very  wide  and  the  corridor  very  narrow. 
Breathing  heavily,  he  kept  his  place  in  the  middle  of  the 
passage.  ...  I  felt  the  impact  of  a  mountain  of  fat  and 
heard  a  snort  as  he  brushed  past  me. 

Everyone  was  afraid  of  him.  Even  famous  musicians 
trembled  in  his  presence.  I  remember  dining  with  one 
of  the  most  eminent  of  living  pianists  at  a  restaurant 
where,  at  a  table  close  at  hand,  Richter  also  was  dining. 
The  previous  evening  Richter  had  conducted  at  a  concert 
at  which  the  pianist  had  played,  and  the  great  conductor 
had  praised  my  friend  in  enthusiastic  terms  ;  moreover, 
they  had  met  before  on  several  occasions. 

"  I'll  go  and  have  a  word  with  the  Old  Man,  if  you'll 
excuse  me,"  said  my  friend. 

I  watched  him  go.  Smiling  a  little,  ingratiatingly, 
he  bowed  to  Richter,  and  then  bent  slightly  over  the  table 
at  which  the  famous  musician  was  dining  alone.  Richter 
took  not  the  slightest  notice.  My  friend,  embarrassed, 
waited  a  minute  or  so,  and  I  saw  him  speaking.  But  the 
diner  continued  dining.     Again  my  friend  spoke,  and  at 


SOME  MUSICIANS  231 

length  Richter  looked  up  and  barked  three  times.  Hastily 
the  pianist  retreated,  and  when  he  had  rejoined  me  I 
noticed  that  he  was  a  little  pale  and  breathless. 

"  The  old  pig  !  "  he  exclaimed. 

"  Why,  what  happened  ?  " 

"  Didn't  you  see  ?  First  of  all,  he  wouldn't  take  the 
slightest  notice  of  me  or  even  acknowledge  my  existence. 
I  spoke  to  him  in  English  three  times  before  he  would 
answer,  and  then,  like  the  mannerless  brute  he  is,  he 
replied  in  German." 

"  What  did  he  say  ?  " 

''  How  do  I  know  ?  I  don't  speak  his  rotten  language. 
But  it  sounded  like  :  '  Zuzu  westeben  hab  !  Zuzu 
westeben  hab  !  Zuzu  westeben  hab  !  '  I  only  know 
that  he  was  very  angry.  He  was  eating  slabs  of  liver 
sausage.     And  he  spoke  right  down  in  his  chest." 

He  was,  indeed,  unapproachable. 

Of  course,  he  was  a  marvellous  conductor,  a  conductor 
of  genius  ;  but  long  before  he  left  Manchester  his  powers 
had  begun  to  fail. 

For  two  or  three  years  I  made  a  practice  of  attending 
his  rehearsals.  Nothing  will  persuade  me  that  in  the 
whole  world  there  is  a  more  depressing  spot  than  the 
Manchester  Free  Trade  Hall  on  a  winter's  morning.  I 
used  to  sit  shivering  with  my  overcoat  collar  buttoned  up. 
Richter  always  wore  a  round  black-silk  cap,  which  made 
him  look  like  a  Greek  priest.  He  would  walk  ponderously 
to  the  conductor's  desk,  seize  his  baton,  rattle  it  against 
the  desk,  and  begin  without  a  moment's  loss  of  time. 
Perhaps  it  was  an  innocent  work  like  Weber's  Der 
Freischiitz  Overture.  This  would  proceed  swimmingly 
enough  for  a  minute  or  so,  when  suddenly  one  would 
hear  a  bark  and  the  music  would  stop.  One  could  not 
say  that  Richter  spoke  or  shouted  :  he  merely  made  a 
disagreeable  noise.  Then,  in  English  most  broken,  in 
English  utterly  smashed,  he  would  correct  the  mistake 


232  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

that  had  been  made,  and  recommence  conducting  without 
loss  of  a  second. 

He  had  no  "  secret."  Great  conductors  never  do 
have  "  secrets."  Only  charlatans  ;'  mesmerise  "  their 
orchestras.  Simply,  he  knew  his  job,  he  was  a  great 
economiser  of  time,  and  he  was  a  stern  disciplinarian. 

He  could  lose  his  temper  easily.  He  hated  those  of  us 
who  were  privileged  to  attend  his  rehearsals.  He  declared, 
quite  unwarrantably,  that  we  talked  and  disturbed  him. 
But  he  never  appeared  to  be  in  the  least  disturbed  by 
the  handful  of  weary  women  who,  with  long  brushes, 
swept  the  seats  and  the  floor  of  the  hall,  raising  whirlpools 
of  dust  fantastically  here  and  there,  and  banging  doors 
in  beautiful  disregard  of  the  Venusberg  music  and  in 
protest  against  the  exquisite  Allegretto  from  the  Seventh 
Symphony. 

Sir  Thomas  Beecham  (he  was  then  plain  "  Mr  ")  brought 
a  tin  of  tobacco  to  the  restaurant,  placed  it  on  the  table, 
and  proceeded  to  fill  his  pipe.  He  was  not  communicative. 
He  simply  sat  back  in  his  chair,  smoking  quietly,  and 
behaving  precisely  as  though  he  were  alone,  though,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  there  were  four  or  five  people  in  his 
company.  He  was  not  shy  :  he  was  simply  indifferent 
to  us.  If  you  spoke  to  him,  he  merely  said  "  no  "  or 
"  yes  "  and  looked  bored.     He  was  bored. 

And  so  he  sat  for  ten  minutes  ;  then,  with  a  little  sigh, 
he  rose  and  departed  from  among  us,  without  a  word, 
without  a  look.     He  just  melted  away  and  never  returned. 

I  rather  dreaded  meeting  Sir  Charles  Santley,  and  when 
I  rang  at  his  door-bell,  I  remember  devoutly  wishing  that 
in  a  moment  I  should  hear  that  he  was  out,  or  that  he  had 
changed  his  mind  and  no  longer  desired  to  see  me.  I 
dreaded  meeting  him  because  I  realised  that,  tempera- 
mentally, we  were  opposed.     I  had  read  his  reminiscences 


SOME  MUSICIANS  233 

and  disliked  him  intensely  for  the  things  he  had  said  of 
Rossetti.  Instinctively,  I  drew  away  from  his  robust, 
tough-fibred  mind. 

But  he  was  in,  and  in  half-a-minute  I  was  talking  to  an 
old,  but  still  vigorous,  gentleman  whose  one  desire  appeared 
to  be  to  put  me  at  my  ease.  I  do  not  think  I  ever  met  a 
man  so  honest,  so  blunt.  I  felt  that  his  mind  was  direct 
and  his  judgment  decisive,  but  I  found  him  lacking  in 
subtlety,  unable  to  respond  to  the  mystical  in  art,  and 
wholly  deficient  in  true  imaginative  qualities.  He  was 
Victorian. 

Now,  I  don't  suppose  any  of  us  who  are  living  to-day 
(and  when  I  say  "  living  "  I  mean  anyone  whose  mind  is 
still  developing — most  people,  say,  under  the  age  of  forty- 
five)  will  be  able  to  understand  the  point  of  view  of  the 
Victorian  musician.  It  appears  to  me  monstrous  that 
anyone  should  still  love  Mendelssohn  and  hate  Wagner, 
that  anyone  should  sing  J.  L.  Hatton  in  preference  to 
Hugo  Wolf,  that  anyone  should  still  delight  in  Donizetti 
and  Bellini.  Those  Victorian  days  were  days  when  the 
singer  wished  that  his  own  notions  of  the  limitations  of  the 
human  voice  should  control  the  free  development  of  music. 
They  loved  bel  canto  and  nothing  else  ;  they  averred, 
indeed,  that  there  was  nothing  else  to  love.  They  were 
admirable  musicians  from  the  technical  point  of  view, 
and  they  had  honest  hearts  and  by  no  means  feeble 
intellects.  But  they  could  never  be  brought  to  believe 
that  music  was  a  reflection  of  life,  that  there  were  in  the 
human  heart  a  thousand  shades  of  feeling  that  not  even 
Handel  had  expressed,  that  sound  is  capable  of  a  million 
subtleties,  that  the  ear  of  man  is  an  organ  that  is,  so  to 
speak,  only  in  its  infancy. 

It  was  a  little  pathetic,  I  thought,  when  speaking  to 
Santley,  that  this  very  great  singer  had  been  living  for 
at  least  thirty  years  entirely  untouched  by  many  of  the 
finest  compositions  that  had  been  written  in  that  period. 


234  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

And  he  declared,  quite  frankly,  that  "  modern  "  music 
had  no  interest  for  him.  When  I  mentioned  Richard 
Strauss,  he  smiled.  At  the  name  of  Debussy,  he  looked 
bewildered,  and  about  Max  Reger,  Scriabin,  Granville 
Bantock,  Sibelius  and  Delius,  he  had  not  a  word  to  say. 

But  soon  we  got  on  to  his  own  subject — singing — and 
here  again  we  were  at  cross-purposes.  Singers  who  to  me 
seem  supreme  artists  he  had  either  not  heard  of  or  had  not 
heard. 

"  There  is  only  one  British  singer  to-day  who  carries 
on  the  old  tradition,"  said  he  ;  'I  mean  Madame  Kirkby 
Lunn.  She  has  technique,  style,  personality.  The  others, 
compared  with  her,  are  nowhere." 

Some  general  talk  followed,  and  I  soon  discovered, 
beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt,  that,  like  all  great 
Victorians  who  have  had  their  day,  he  was  living  in  the 
past — in  that  particular  past  whose  artistic  spirit  is 
embodied  in  the  Albert  Memorial,  in  the  musical  criticism 
of  J.  W.  Davidson,  in  the  pianoforte  playing  of  Arabella 
Godard,  in  the  poetry  of  Lord  Tennyson,  in  the  pictures 
of  Lord  Leighton,  in  the  prose  of  Ruskin. 

What  had  Santley  to  say  to  me,  or  I  to  him  ?  Nothing, 
and  less  than  nothing.  We  were  from  different  worlds, 
different  planets,  for  half-a-century  divided  us.  In 
years,  he  was  nearer  to  the  Elizabethan  age  than  I  .  .  . 
and  yet  how  much  farther  away  was  he  ? 

•  ••  ••  ••  * 

Perhaps  Mr  Landon  Ronald  will  not  be  angry  with  me 
if  I  call  him  the  most  accomplished  of  British  musicians. 
He  would  have  every  right  to  be  angry  if  I  said  he  was 
accomplished  and  nothing  else.  .  .  .  How  far  back  that 
word  "  accomplished  "  takes  us,  doesn't  it  ?  Twenty 
years,  at  least.  For  aught  I  know  to  the  contrary,  it 
may  still  be  employed  in  Putney.  I  observe  that  Chambers 
defines  "  accomplishment  "  as  an  "  ornamental  acquire- 
ment," and,  in  my  boyhood,  that  was  precisely  what  it 


SOME  MUSICIANS  235 

meant.  Young  ladies  "  acquired  "  the  art  of  playing 
the  piano,  the  art  of  painting,  the  art  of  recitation.  Their 
skill  in  any  art  was  not  the  result  of  developing  a  talent 
that  was  already  there,  but  it  was  the  result  of  a  per- 
tinacity that  should  have  been  spent  on  other  things. 
But  one  no  longer  uses  "  accomplished  "  in  that  precise 
sense. 

Landon  Ronald  has  more  than  a  streak  of  genius  in  his 
nature,  and  his  cleverness  is  so  abnormal  as  to  be  almost 
absurd.  His  genius  and  his  cleverness  are  evident  even 
in  a  few  minutes'  conversation.  He  radiates  cleverness, 
and  he  is  so  splendidly  alive  that  as  soon  as  he  enters 
a  room  you  feel  that  something  quick  and  electric  has 
been  added  to  your  environment. 

When  I  first  met  him — ten  years  ago,  was  it  ?— his 
one  ambition  was  to  be  recognised  throughout  Europe  as 
a  great  conductor.  He  was  acknowledged  as  such  in 
England,  of  course,  and  a  visit  to  Rome  had  fired  both 
the  Italian  public  and  critics  with  enthusiasm.  But 
London  and  Rome  are  not  Europe,  whilst  in  those  days 
Berlin  most  distinctly  was.  He  was  most  charmingly 
frank  about  himself,  full  of  enthusiasm  for  himself,  full 
of  delight  in  all  life's  adventures. 

"  Of  course,  I  know  my  songs  aren't  real  songs,"  he  said. 
"  I  can  write  tunes  and  I'm  a  musician,  and  I'm  just 
clever  enough  to  be  cleverer  than  most  people  at  that 
sort  of  work.  But  you  must  not  imagine  I  take  my  com- 
positions seriously.  I  think  they're  rather  nice — '  nice  ' 
is  the  word,  isn't  it  ?— and  I  enjoy  inventing  them — and 
'  inventing  '  is  also  the  word,  don't  you  think  ?  Besides, 
they  make  money  ;  they  help  to  boil  the  pot  for  me 
while  I  go  on  with  my  more  serious  work — that  is  to  say, 
conducting." 

Havergal  Brian  was  in  the  room — we  were  in  that 
fulsome  and  blowzy  town,  Blackpool — and  he  remarked, 
as   so  many  extraordinarily  able   composers  have   from 


236  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

time  to  time  remarked,  that  he  found  it  impossible  to 
write  music  that  the  public  really  liked. 

"  Nearly  all  my  stuff,"  said  he,  "is  on  a  big  scale  for 
the  orchestra.  I  am  always  trying  to  do  something  new — 
something  out  of  the  common  rut." 

"  Ah,  but  then,"  exclaimed  Ronald,  quite  sincerely, 
"  you  are  a  composer,  and  I  am  not." 

Brian  was  appeased,  and  I  looked  at  Ronald  with  admira- 
tion for  his  tact.     But  he  went  even  a  little  farther. 

"  I  sometimes  feel  rather  a  pig,"  he  continued,  "  making 
money  by  my  trifles  when  so  many  men  with  much  greater 
gifts  can  only  rarely  get  their  work  performed  and  still 
more  rarely  get  it  published.  You  told  us  just  now,"  said 
he,  turning  to  Brian,  "  that  you  would  like  to  make 
money  by  your  compositions.  Who  wouldn't  ?  Well, 
it  would  be  foolish  of  me  to  advise  you  to  try  to  write 
more  simply,  with  less  originality,  and  on  a  smaller  scale. 
It  would  be  foolish,  because  you  simply  couldn't  do  it. 
No  ;  you  must  work  out  your  own  salvation  :  it  is  only  a 
matter  of  waiting  :   success  will  come." 

A  month  or  two  later,  we  met  at  Southport,  I  in  the 
meantime  having  written  an  article  on  Ronald  for  a 
musical  magazine.  With  this  article  he  professed  him- 
self charmed.  He  was  as  jolly  about  it  as  a  schoolboy, 
and  expressed  surprise  that  I  could  honestly  say  such 
nice  things  about  him. 

"  It  is  good  to  be  praised,"  said  he,  laughing  ;  '  I 
could  live  on  praise  for  ever."  And  then,  lighting  a 
cigarette,  he  added  :  "  Perhaps  the  reason  why  I  like 
it  so  much  is  that  I  feel  I  really  deserve  it." 

It  was  my  turn  to  laugh. 

"But  I  do  feel  that  !  "  he  protested  ;  "  if  I  didn't, 
I  should  hate  you  or  anyone  else  to  say  such  frightfully 
kind  things  about  me  and  my  work." 

A  month  or  two  later  he  wrote  me  a  long  letter  full  of 
enthusiasm  for  some  work  of  mine  he  had  seen  some- 


SOME  MUSICIANS  237 

where,  and  when  I  saw  him  the  following  week  in  London 
I  protested  against  his  undiluted  \  raise. 

"  I  believe  you  think  I  am  a  bit  of  a  humbug,"  said  he. 

"  I'm  afraid  I  do,"  I  replied.  (For,  really,  I  think 
almost  all  subtle  and  clever  artists  are  bits  of  humbugs.) 

"  Very  good,  then  !  "  exclaimed  he,  ridiculously  hurt. 

"  What  I  mean  is,  that  if  you  like  anyone,  your  judg- 
ment is  immediately  prejudiced  in  their  favour." 

"  So  you  think  I  like  you  ?  " 

"I  am  sure  of  it." 

"  Well,  you're  quite  right.  But,  really  and  truly, 
you  mustn't  call  me,  or  even  think  me,  the  slightest  bit 
of  a  humbug.  You  can  call  me  impulsive,  superficial, 
or  anything  horrid  of  that  kind  .  .  .  but  insincere ! 
Why,  sincerity  is  the  only  real  virtue  I've  got." 

And  I  believe  he  believed  himself.  But  who  is  sincere  ? 
— at  least,  who  is  sincere  except  at  the  moment  ?  Are  not 
all  of  us  who  are  artists  swayed  hither  and  thither,  from 
hour  to  hour,  by  the  emotion  of  the  moment  ?  Do  we 
not  say  one  thing  now,  and  an  hour  later  mean  exactly 
the  opposite  ?  Are  we  not  driven  by  our  enthusiasms 
to  false  positions,  and  do  not  glib,  untrue  words  spring 
to  our  lips  because  the  moment's  mood  forces  them 
there  ? 

I  have  not  met  Landon  Ronald  for  four  vears,  but  the 
other  day  I  heard  him  conduct,  and  I  recognised  in  his 
interpretations  the  supreme  qualities  I  have  so  often 
observed  before.  He  himself  is  like  his  work — polished, 
highly  strung,  emotional,  fluid,  intense.  His  mind  works 
with  lightning-like  quickness  ;  he  knows  what  you  are 
going  to  say  just  a  second  before  you  have  said  it.  And 
over  his  personality  hangs  the  glamour  that  we  call  genius. 

•  ••••••• 

Many  well-known  singers  have  I  met,  but  very  few  of 
them  inspire  me  to  burst  into  song.  They  are  a  dull, 
vain  crew.    Among  the  few  most  notable  exceptions  is 


238  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

Frederic  Austin,  a  man  with  a  temperament  so  refined, 
with  a  nature  so  retiring,  that  it  is  a  constant  source  of 
wonder  to  me  that  he  should  be  where  he  now  is — in 
the  front  rank  of  vocalists. 

Years  ago  Ernest  Newman  said  to  me  : 
'  Frederic  Austin  has  become  a  fine  singer  through 
sheer  brain-work.  He  always  had  temperament,  but  his 
voice  was  never  in  the  least  remarkable  until  by  ingenious 
training,  by  constant  thought,  and  by  the  most  arduous 
labour  he  developed  it  until  it  became  an  organ  of  sufficient 
strength  and  richness  to  enable  him  to  interpret  anything 
that  appeals  to  him." 

He  is,  I  think,  the  only  eminent  singer  in  this  country 
who  is  a  distinguished  composer.  But  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable  thing  about  him  is  that  you  might  very  easily 
pass  days  in  his  company  without  guessing  that  he  is  a 
famous  singer,  for  his  personality  suggests  qualities  that 
famous  singers  seldom  possess.  He  is  distingue,  austere, 
and  devoted  to  his  art, 


CHAPTER  XX 
TWO  CHELSEA  "RAGS,"  1914  AND  1918 

1914 

IT  used  to  begin  as  a  rumour,  a  faint  stirring  and 
excitement  in  King's  Road,  Chelsea.  The  artist 
on  the  top  floor  of  Joubert  Studios — an  artist  who 
had  a  private  income  and  a  gently  nursed  hypochondria — 
received  a  parcel  from  home  :  a  couple  of  cooked  chickens, 
perhaps,  a  tongue,  cakes,  crystallised  fruits,  three  bottles 
of  wine  and  so  on.  The  lady  who  occupied  the  studio 
below,  and  the  musical  critic  who  lived  in  the  third  studio 
from  the  top,  were  duly  apprised  of  the  fact,  and  Norman 
and  Eddie  Morrow  were  called  in  from  near  by  for  a 
consultation. 

"  Clearly,"  the  lady  remarked,  "  a  rag  is  indicated.  A 
rag  must  always  have  a  beginning,  and  this  undoubtedly 
is  a  most  excellent  beginning.  Ring  up  Susie,  somebody, 
and  fetch  Hearn  over  and  Ivan  and  let  the  Cumberlands 
know  ;  and,  oh  !  Hughes,  dear  little  Herbert,  lend  me 
your  pots  and  pans  and  things.  And,  Warlow,  just  run 
round  everywhere  and  tell  all  the  people  you  meet. 
Don't  forget  John,  and  I  think  that  Deane  would  like 
that  girl  with  fuzzy  hair.  We'll  begin  at  seven.  No, 
we  won't :    we'll  begin  now." 

And  Warlow,  nursing  his  hypochondria  and  being  very 
biddable,  sighed  and  moved  away,  saying  beseechingly 
as  he  went : 

"  You  will  leave  me  a  wing,  won't  you  ?  I've  had  no 
breakfast  yet." 

239 


240  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

But  neither  had  the  rest,  and  by  the  time  Warlow, 
suffering  in  a  resigned  and  patient  kind  of  way  from 
paleness  and  breathlessness,  returned,  one  of  the  chickens 
had  vanished,  and  the  long  table  with  its  litter  of  paper, 
cardboard,  pencils  and  paint,  was  now  littered  also  with 
plates  and  knives  and  forks  and  breadcrumbs.  The  rag 
had  begun. 

The  month  was  May,  a  true  May  with  a  warm  wind, 
a  warmer  sun,  and  fluttering  green  leaves.  The  little 
party — the  nucleus  of  the  much  larger  party  that  was  to 
meet  there  in  the  evening — drifted  downstairs  to  Hughes's 
studio  where  there  was  a  grand  piano  and  a  portable 
harmonium  which  appeared  to  belong  to  no  one  in  par- 
ticular. Hughes,  looking  a  little  ruefully  at  the  MS. 
upon  which  he  was  engaged,  put  it  away  on  a  shelf, 
opened  his  wide  windows  and  began  to  play.  Harry 
Lowe,  with  his  magnificent  but  untrained  voice,  appeared 
dramatically  in  the  doorway  and  sang  : 


f  For  he's  a  Scotsman,  a  bonny  Scotsman, 
aJf°     \  His  feyther  and  his  mither, 

I  His  sister  and  his  brither — 

(Forte)       They  are  all  Scotch,  from  the  land  of  Roderick  Dhu  ; 
( Vivace)     And  the  whitewash  brush  in  the  middle  of  his  kilt 
(Piano)  Is  all  Sco-otch  too. 

This  went  to  a  great  tune  devised,  invented,  composed 
and  arranged  by  Hughes  and  Lowe.  The  great  air, 
heard  with  its  cunning  chatter  of  an  accompaniment  from 
the  piano,  put  everyone  in  the  right  mood,  and  Norman 
Morrow,  whose  head  was  always  full  of  ideas,  began  to 
prepare  "  stunts  "  for  the  evening,  whilst  Warlow,  having 
nothing  better  to  do,  attired  himself  as  an  Italian  Count, 
sat  at  the  open  window,  and  smiled  sadly  at  all  the  girls 
whose  attention  he  could  attract  in  the  street  below. 

Norman's  idea  was  a  revue — a  revue  of  Any  Old 
Thing :  Mona  Lisa,  the  sale  of  beautiful  slaves,  the 
Salome  Dance  by  six-foot -two  Harry  Lowe,  the  Innocent 


TWO  CHELSEA  "  RAGS  "  241 

Wench  who  took  the  Wrong  Turning,  etc.,  etc.  He 
wanted  to  prepare  the  groundwork  for  the  evening's 
performance  ;  the  details  could  be  filled  in  on  the  spur 
of  the  moment.  But,  in  the  afternoon  rehearsal,  several 
scenes,  exciting  the  actors,  were  studied  carefully  to  the 
most  minute  particular.  Kitty,  in  the  meantime,  was 
upstairs  preparing  food,  her  dainty  hands  fluttering  over 
salads  and  sandwiches.  At  six,  jolly,  lovable  little 
Susie  rushed  from  her  work,  revitalised  everybody,  and 
sang  in  her  funny  little  voice,  holding  a  cigarette  in  one 
hand  and  a  saucepan  in  the  other. 

But  before  the  Rag  Proper  began,  many  charming 
idiocies  were  enacted.  Warlow  and  Eddie  Morrow  walked 
to  Sloane  Square  (it  is  conceivable  that  they  called  at  the 
Six  Bells  on  the  way)  for  the  sole  purpose  of  riding  back 
again  in  a  taxi-cab,  Warlow  in  a  great  Russian  overcoat 
smothered  in  fur,  Eddie  a  little  unkempt  and  looking  as 
though  he  had  just  stepped  out  of  one  of  J.  M.  Synge's 
plays.  Harry  Lowe  telephoned  a  number  of  telegrams 
to  a  far-off  post  office  where  it  was  supposed  there  was 
a  lady  who  owned  his  heart  and  sold  postage  stamps. 
Norman  Morrow  sat  in  a  corner  daubing  pieces  of  brown 
paper  with  yellow  paint  and  chuckling  inconsequently 
to  himself.  All  three  studios,  one  above  the  other, 
appeared  to  be  in  glorious  disorder,  but,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  nearly  every  brain  was  busy  with  preparations,  and 
by  seven  o'clock  everything  was  ready  for  the  great 
rag.  .  .  . 

I  cannot  re-create  the  scene  for  you.  I  do  not  know 
quite  how  it  is,  but  the  gaiety,  the  light-heartedness  of 
that  most  jolly  evening  ooze  from  my  heart  as  I  write. 
I  am  not  sufficient  of  an  artist  to  sweep  from  my  heart 
all  the  sad,  irrecoverable  things  that  my  heart  remembers. 
Especially,  I  cannot  forget  Ivan  Heald,  who  now  lies  dead. 
(A  year  later  he  was  to  say  to  me,  in  that  same  studio  : 
"  This  is  a  real  good-bye,  Gerald.     It  is  not  possible  that 


242  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

both  of  us  will  survive  this."  .  .  .  And,  of  course,  it  is  he 
who  has  gone.  One  feels  mean  in  surviving,  in  enjoying 
the  savour  of  life,  when  one's  best  friends  have 
departed.)  .  .  . 

The  artistic  Irishman  is  a  perfect  actor,  an  inimitable 
mimic,  and  the  two  Morrows  surpassed  everyone.  If 
ever  you  have  seen  Eddie  Morrow,  it  will  appear  to  you 
inconceivable  that  he  could  ever  make  a  good  Mona  Lisa. 
Yet  his  Mona  Lisa  was  perfect.  He  smiled  so  mysteriously, 
so  faintly,  so  imaginatively,  that  Walter  Pater,  had  he 
seen  him,  would  have  rewritten  that  swooning  chapter 
which  contains  so  much  of  art's  opiate.  ...  I  remember 
Edith  Heald  who,  unexpectedly  to  me,  revealed  con- 
summate art  as  a  nigger-boy,  her  eyes  rolling  in  rapt 
wonderment.  I  remember  Hearn's  eyeglasses,  and  the 
smiling  eyes  behind  them,  and  the  little  scurry  of  words 
that  occasionally  came  from  his  lips  when  something 
magical  touched  his  spirit.  And  I  can  hear  Herbert 
Hughes'  contented  voice  saying  :  "  Well,  this  is  rather 
splendid,  don't  you  know." 

Hughes  was  awfully  good  to  me  on  these  occasions, 
for  he  would  allow  me  to  improvise  the  music  for  the 
dumb  charades,  though  as  an  extempore  player — and, 
indeed,  as  a  player  of  any  kind — he  is  worlds  above  me. 
And  I  used  to  love  to  invent  Eastern  Dances  a  la  Bantock 
to  fit  the  gyrations  of  Harry  Lowe,  or  Debussy  chords 
for  anything  shadowy  and  sentimental,  or  chromatic 
melodies — prolonged  and  melting  things  in  the  "  O  Star 
of  Eve  "  manner— for  luscious  love  scenes,  or  fat,  bulgy 
discords  when  some  real  tomfoolery  was  afoot. 

You  must  imagine  everybody  gay  and,  occasionally, 
just  a  little  riotous  ;  in  remembrance,  it  seems  to  me  very 
beautiful  because  so  happy  and  childlike.  And  you  must 
imagine  everybody  very  friendly,  even  to  complete 
strangers.  There  was  a  carnival  atmosphere.  Clever 
people  were  there  with  their  brains  burning  bright.     There 


TWO  CHELSEA  "RAGS"  243 

were  wit,  music,  wine,  pretty  women,  courtesy,  infinite 
good- will. 

Perhaps,  towards  midnight,  we  would  seek  change  in 
quietness,  and,  lying  on  rugs  spread  on  the  waxed  floor, 
would  listen  to  Norman  singing,  unaccompanied,  an  Irish 
Rebel  song,  and  something  a  little  hard  would  come  into 
Irish  Susie's  eyes  for  a  moment  or  two,  and  I  remember 
with  regret  how,  some  months  after  war  had  broken  out, 
I  said  after  Norman  had  been  singing  that  it  was  no  longer 
pleasant  to  me  to  hear  Rebel  songs.  Regret  ?  Yes ; 
for  when  I  said  that  I  was  a  prig  and  was  imagining 
myself  as  something  of  a  soldier-hero.  If  only  Norman 
were  alive  now  to  sing  whatsoever  songs  he  liked  ! 

Well,  the  evening  lapsed  into  night  and  the  night  into 
morn,  and  again  we  became  boisterous  and  new  ideas 
were  put  into  shape  and  little  tragedies  were  given  in  the 
burlesque  manner.  The  resourcefulness  of  the  mimes  ! 
The  devilishly  clever  satire  !  The  good  spirits  that  never 
failed  !  .  .  . 

It  is  no  use.  I  cannot  describe  for  you  one  of  those 
great  nights,  for  the  mood  will  not  come.  And  one  of  the 
reasons  why  I  cannot  recapture  the  spirit  of  a  Chelsea 
Rag  as  it  was  in  the  old  days,  is  because  whilst  I  am  writing 
I  have  in  my  mind  a  picture  of  a  very  different  kind. 


1918 

Early  in  1918  I  was  in  London  for  a  brief  period  after 
an  absence  from  England  of  more  than  two  years  spent 
in  France,  Egypt,  Greece  and  Serbia.  My  health  was 
broken,  my  spirits  were  low.  The  Chelsea  people  were 
dispersed  ;  only  Hearn,  with  his  lame  foot,  was  left  of  the 
men,  but  several  of  the  women  were  to  be  found.  Herbert 
Hughes,  by  some  miracle,  was  on  leave,  and  he  turned  up 


244  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

unexpectedly  one  night  at  my  flat.     We  talked  quietly, 
laughed  a  little,  had  some  music,  and  fell  into  silence. 
'  Those  great  days  !  "  said  I,  apropos  of  nothing. 

"  Yes.  Nothing  like  them  will  come  again.  But  all 
of  us  who  remain  alive  and  are  still  in  England  must  meet. 
What  about  next  Sunday  ?     We'll  meet  at  Madame's." 

And  so  it  was  arranged.  Next  Sunday  there  were  seven 
of  us  to  make  merry,  whereas  in  former  days  there  were 
forty  or  fifty.  But  we  seven  were  together  once  more : 
we  who,  as  it  were,  had  been  saved — saved  perhaps  only 
temporarily. 

It  is  a  long  studio  in  which  we  sit,  but  screens  enclose 
a  piano,  the  fireplace,  a  few  rugs  and  chairs,  and  a  table. 
Madame  is  tall  and  quiet  and  distinguished  ;  her  light 
soprano  voice  conveys  an  impression  of  wistfulness,  and 
her  personality,  full  of  charm  and  a  sadness  that  does  not 
conceal  her  courage,  diffuses  itself  throughout  the  room. 
We  have  met  together  for  a  rag,  but  no  one  evinces  the 
least  desire  to  indulge  in  any  violent  jollity. 

Hughes  goes  to  the  piano,  for  a  piano  always  draws 
him  as  a  magnet  draws  steel,  and  sometimes,  half- 
consciously,  he  feels  the  pull  of  one  before  he  has  seen  it. 
He  goes  to  the  piano  and,  perking  his  nose  at  an  angle  of 
about  forty  degrees  with  the  horizontal,  plays  French  songs 
very  quietly,  whilst  we  sit  gazing  into  the  heart  of  the  fire, 
each  with  his  own  thoughts,  and  probably  each  with  the 
same  thoughts — thoughts  of  Harry  Lowe  in  Greece,  of 
Gordon  Warlow  in  Mesopotamia,  of  those  who  lie  dead, 
though  but  two  years  before  they  were  more  alive  than 
we  ourselves,  of  those  who  have  gone  to  France  and 
never  returned.  .  .  . 

And  Madame,  moving  with  our  thoughts,  gently  rises 
and  joins  Hughes  and  begins,  her  hands  clasped  on  her 
breast,  to  sing  with  most  alluring  grace  things  by  Hahn, 
Debussy  and  Duparc.  The  music  lulls  us  into  a  very 
luxury  of  sadness,  into  a  mood  in  which  grief  loses  its  edge 


TWO  CHELSEA  "RAGS"  245 

and  sorrow  its  poignancy.  To  me,  who  have  heard  no 
music  for  two  years,  her  singing  is  mercilessly  beautiful, 
so  beautiful,  indeed,  that  my  breathing  becomes  uneven 
and  my  eyes  wet.  And  once  again  I  feel  that  spinal 
shiver  which,  as  a  little  boy,  I  used  to  experience  when  I 
heard  an  anthem  by  Gounod  or  just  caught  the  sound  of 
a  military  band  as  it  marched  down  another  road.  .  .  . 
I  never  used  to  run  from  the  house  to  see  the  band,  for 
even  in  those  early  days  I  had  an  intuitive  knowledge 
that  beauty  is  mystery,  and  that  to  probe  mysteries  is  to 
mar,  if  not  altogether  to  kill,  beauty.  .  .  .  And  to-night, 
when  Madame  comes  to  the  end  of  each  song,  I  do  not 
speak,  I  scarcely  breathe,  so  fearful  am  I  that  the  spell 
may  be  broken.  But  something  of  the  spell  lasts  even 
when  she  ceases  singing  altogether  and,  looking  at  my 
wife,  I  know  that  she  feels  it  too— that,  indeed,  all  in  our 
little  company  are  more  quietly  happy,  more  reconciled 
to  all  the  brutality  and  ugliness  over  the  sea,  than  we  have 
been  for  a  long  age. 

We  talk  in  quiet  tones  about  the  past,  the  present  and 
the  future,  each  contributing  something  to  the  common 
stock  of  conversation.  Madame  brings  us  tea  and  cakes, 
and  we  listen  to  the  dim  rumour  of  traffic  in  King's 
Road.  And  then,  not  very  late,  moved  by  a  common 
impulse,  we  rise  to  leave,  and  talking  softly  as  we  go, 
make  our  way  outside  where,  as  we  did  in  that  spot  three 
years  ago,  we  say  farewell,  wondering  as  we  do  so  what 
Fate  has  in  store  for  each  of  us  and  whether  for  one  or 
more  of  us  this  is  the  end  of  our  life  in  Chelsea — a  life 
in  which  we  have  worked  hard  and  played  hard,  enjoying 
both  work  and  play,  and  in  which  we  have  been  carelessly 
unmindful  of  the  danger  lying  in  wait  for  our  country. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
SOME  MORE  MUSICIANS 

Professor  Granville  Bantock — Frederick  Delius — Joseph  Holbrooke 
— Dr  Walford  Davies — Dr  Vaughan  Williams — Dr  W.  G. 
M'Naught  —  Julius  Harrison  —  Rutland  Boughton  —  John 
Coates — Cyril  Scott 

AT  the  present  moment  there  are  only  two  names 
that  are  of  vital  importance  in  British  creative 
music — Sir  Edward  Elgar  and  Granville  Bantock. 
No  two  men  could  be  in  more  violent  contrast  :  Elgar, 
conservative,  soured  with  the  aristocratic  point  of  view, 
super-refined,  deeply  religious ;  Bantock,  democratic, 
Rabelaisian,  free-thinking,  gorgeously  human. 

Of  the  two,  Bantock  is  the  more  original,  the  deeper 
thinker,  the  more  broadly  sympathetic. 

It  must  be  about  ten  years  ago  that,  staying  a  week- 
end with  Ernest  Newman,  I  was  taken  by  my  host  one 
evening  to  Bantock's  house  in  Moseley.  I  remember 
Bantock's  bulky  form  rising  from  the  table  at  which  he 
was  scoring  the  first  part  of  his  setting  of  Omar  Khayyam, 
and  I  recollect  that,  as  soon  as  we  had  shaken  hands,  he 
took  from  his  pocket  an  enormous  cigar-case  of  many 
compartments  that  shut  in  upon  themselves  concertina- 
fashion.  From  another  pocket  he  produced  a  huge 
match-box  containing  matches  almost  as  large  as  the  chips 
of  wood  commonly  used  for  lighting  fires.  Having 
carefully  selected  a  cigar  for  me,  he  struck  a  match  that, 
spluttering  like  a  firework,  calmed  down  into  a  huge  blaze. 
He  gazed  upon  me  very  solemnly  and  rather  critically 
all  the  time  I  was  lighting  up,  but  his  face  relaxed  into  a 

246 


SOME  MORE  MUSICIANS  247 

smile  when,  having  plunged  my  cigar  into  the  middle  of 
the  flame,  I  left  it  there  for  many  seconds  and  did  not 
withdraw  it  until  the  cigar  itself  had  momentarily  flamed 
and  until  it  glowed  like  a  miniature  furnace. 

I  was  destined  to  smoke  very  many  of  Bantock's 
cigars,  and  I  hope  that  when  the  war  is  over  I  shall  smoke 
many  more  ;  but  I  never  lit  a  cigar  he  handed  me  without 
noticing  that  he  invariably  observed  me  very  closely  and 
a  trifle  anxiously,  as  though  afraid  I  should  fail  in  some 
detail  of  the  holy  rite.  I  do  not  think  I  ever  did  fail,  for 
he  never  met  me  without  offering  me  a  cheroot,  which  he 
certainly  would  never  have  done  if  I  had  omitted  any 
necessary  observance  of  the  lighting  ceremonial. 

That  first  evening  we  talked  a  good  deal — at  least, 
Newman  and  a  few  other  friends  did  ;  but  Bantock,  never 
a  very  loquacious  man,  committed  himself  to  nothing 
save  a  few  generalities.  By  no  means  a  cautious  man  in 
his  mode  of  life,  he  is  nevertheless  cautious  in  his  choice 
of  friends,  and  no  man  can  freeze  more  quickly  than  he 
when  uncongenial  company  is  thrust  upon  him.  There 
were  several  strangers  in  our  little  circle,  and  Bantock 
was  content  for  the  most  part  to  sit  back  in  his  easy -chair 
and  listen. 

The  following  night  we  met  again  at  the  Midland 
Institute,  Birmingham,  where  Ernest  Newman  was  giving 
one  of  his  witty  and  brilliant  lectures.  Bantock  insisted 
upon  my  sitting  on  the  platform,  though  for  what  reason 
I  do  not  know,  unless  it  was  to  satisfy  his  impish  instinct 
for  putting  shy  and  self-conscious  people  into  prominent 
positions.  At  that  time  he  and  Newman  were  the  closest 
of  friends,  and  as  Newman  and  I  were  on  very  friendly 
terms,  Bantock  was  disposed  to  regard  me  very  favourably ; 
at  all  events,  before  we  parted  that  evening,  he  showed 
me  clearly  enough  that  he  did  not  actually  dislike  me, 
for  he  invited  me  to  visit  him  for  a  week-end  whenever 
I  saw  my  way  clear  to  do  so.     From  that  time  onward 


248  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

I  met  him  frequently  in  his  own  house,  in  Manchester, 
London,  Wrexham,  Gloucester,  Liverpool,  Birmingham 
and  elsewhere. 

Soon  it  became  a  regular  practice  of  mine  to  run  over 
from  Manchester  to  Liverpool  every  alternate  Saturday 
to  attend  the  afternoon  rehearsal  and  the  evening  concert 
of  the  Philharmonic  Society,  the  orchestra  of  which 
Bantock  conducted.  These  were  very  pleasant  meetings, 
for  a  party  of  us  used  to  stay  at  the  London  and  North 
Western  Hotel  and  we  would  sit  until  the  small  hours 
of  Sunday  morning  talking  music,  returning  to  our  re- 
spective homes  on  Sunday  afternoon.  At  these  times 
Bantock  was  at  his  best,  and  Bantock's  best  makes  the 
finest  company  in  the  world.  In  his  presence  one  always 
feels  warm  and  deeply  comfortable,  and  yet  very  much 
alive  ;  he  made  a  glow  ;  he  reconciled  one  to  oneself. 
I  would  not  call  him  a  brilliant,  or  even  a  good,  talker, 
but  I  can  with  truth  call  him  a  very  wise  one  ;  and  in 
argument  he  is  unassailable. 

•  ••••••• 

Though  I  used  frequently  to  go  to  Liverpool  to  hear 
Bantock  conduct,  I  did  not  do  so  because  I  regarded  him 
as  a  great  artist  with  the  baton.  Of  his  ability  in  this 
direction,  there  is  no  doubt ;  but  that  he  is  an  interpreta- 
tive genius  no  qualified  critic  would  assert.  No  :  it  was 
the  personality  of  the  man  himself,  and  the  new,  modern 
works  he  used  to  include  in  his  programmes  that  drew 
me  to  Liverpool.  Bantock,  at  that  period,  was  almost 
passionately  modern.  I  remember  with  amusement  how 
pettish  he  used  sometimes  to  pretend  to  be  when,  perhaps 
in  deference  to  public  opinion  (but  perhaps  he  was  over- 
ruled by  a  Committee  ?),  he  felt  compelled  to  include  a 
Beethoven  symphony  in  one  of  his  concerts. 

On  one  occasion  I  met  him  at  Lime  Street  Station, 
Liverpool,  when  he  emerged  from  the  train  carrying  a 
bundle  of  loose  scores  under  his  arm. 


SOME  MORE  MUSICIANS  249 

'  Let  me  carry  your  books  for  you,"  said  I. 

He  selected  the  least  bulky  and  lightest  of  the  scores 
he  was  carrying,  and  handed  it  to  me. 

"  You  are  always  a  good  chap,  Cumberland,"  he  re- 
marked. '  Do  take  this ;  it's  the  heaviest  of  the  lot  : 
Beethoven's  Fifth  Symphony.  So  very  heavy."  He 
sighed.  "  And  so  dry  that  merely  to  carry  it  makes  me 
thirsty.     How  many  times  have  you  heard  it  ?  " 

But  he  "was  poking  a  cigar  into  my  mouth,  and  I  could 
not  answer  until  it  was  well  alight. 

"  At  least  fifty  or  sixty.  Oh,  more  than  that  !  Eight 
times,  say,  every  year  for  the  last  fifteen  years — one 
hundred  and  twenty." 

'  Yes,  always  a  good  chap,  and  so  very  patient,"  he 
murmured  to  himself.  "  Do  you  know,  Cumberland,  I 
had  to  work — yes,  to  work — at  that  Symphony  in  the  train. 
And  I  define  work  as  doing  something  that  gives  you  no 
pleasure.  Talking  about  work,  I  must  post  these  before 
I  forget." 

He  took  from  his  pocket  a  number  of  post  cards  all 
addressed  to  Ernest  Newman.  These  post  cards  appeared 
to  amuse  him  immensely,  and  he  handed  them  to  me  with 
a  smile.  There  were  about  a  dozen  of  them,  and  each 
bore  an  anagram  of  the  word  "  work  " — krow,  wrok, 
rowk,  rwko,  etc. 

"  He'll  receive  these  by  the  first  post  in  the  morning," 
Bantock  explained,  "  and  if  they  don't  succeed  in  making 
him  jump  out  of  bed  and  finish  his  analysis  of  my  Omar 
Khayyam  for  Brcitkopf  and  Hartel,  nothing  will." 

Point  was  added  to  the  jest  by  the  fact  that  Newman 
has  always  been  a  particularly  hard,  and  generally  very 
heavily  pressed  worker. 

•  ••••••  • 

In  his  early  manhood  Bantock  travelled  a  good  deal  in 
the  East,  not  so  much  by  choice,  but  because  circum- 
stances drove   him  thither.     Yet  I   often  feel   that  the 


250  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

East  is  his  natural  home.  Whether  or  not  he  has  any  close 
acquaintance  with  Eastern  languages,  I  do  not  know, 
but  he  certainly  likes  his  friends  to  think  he  has,  and 
many  of  the  letters  he  has  sent  me  contain  quotations 
and  odd  words  written  in  what  I  take  to  be  Persian  and 
Chinese  characters.  I  should  not,  however,  be  in  the 
least  surprised  to  leam  that  these  are  "  faked,"  for  Bantock 
loves  nothing  so  much  as  gently  pulling  the  legs  of  his 
friends. 

He  has  not,  however,  the  foresight  of  Eastern  people. 
His  enthusiasms  drive  him  into  extremes  and  into  mone- 
tary extravagances.  When  he  lived  at  Broadmeadow, 
with  its  extensive  wooded  grounds,  outside  Birmingham, 
he  had  a  mania  for  bulbs,  and  I  remember  his  showing 
me  a  stable  the  floor  of  which  was  covered  with  crocus, 
daffodil,  jonquil  and  narcissus  bulbs. 

"  But,"  protested  I,  "  these  ought  to  have  been  planted 
months  ago." 

"  I  know,  I  know,"  he  said  sadly.  "  But  the  gardener 
is  so  busy.     Still,  there  they  are." 

His  philosophic  outlook  has  been  largely  directed  by 
Eastern  philosophy.  He  admires  cunning  and  takes  a 
beautiful  and  childlike  delight  in  believing  that  he  possesses 
that  quality  in  abundance.  But  in  reality,  he  cannot 
deceive.  Even  his  card  tricks  are  amateurish,  and  his 
chess-playing  is  only  just  good. 

Apropos  of  his  chess-playing,  I  remember  that  some 
years  ago  a  chess  enthusiast — a  bore  of  the  vilest  descrip- 
tion— used  to  visit  him  regularly  and  stay  to  a  very  late 
hour  for  the  purpose  of  playing  a  game.  These  visits 
soon  became  intolerable,  and,  one  evening,  as  Bantock, 
irritated  and  petulant,  sat  opposite  his  opponent,  he 
resolved  to  put  an  end  to  the  nuisance. 

"  Excuse  me  a  moment,"  said  he  ;  "I  have  left  my 
cigar-box  upstairs,  and  I  really  can't  do  without  a 
smoke." 


SOME  MORE  MUSICIANS  251 

He  left  the  room,  and  went  straight  to  bed  and  to  sleep. 
Next  time  he  met  his  visitor,  they  merely  bowed. 

Bantock  used  to  relate  this  story  with  the  greatest 
glee,  and  in  the  course  of  time  the  yarn  grew  to  colossal 
dimensions.  It  became  epical.  One  was  told  how  his 
visitor  was  heard  calling  :  "  Bantock  !  Bantock  !  I've 
taken  your  Queen,"  how  strange  noises  proceeded  from 
dark  rooms,  and  how,  next  morning,  his  visitor,  having 
sat  up  all  night,  was  found  wide  awake  trying  the  effect 
of  certain  combinations  of  moves  on  the  board.  When  a 
thing  is  said  three  times,  it  is,  of  course,  true,  but  Bantock 
never  told  exactly  the  same  story  three  times.  He 
believes,  I  think,  that  consistency  is  the  refuge  and  the 
consolation  of  the  dull-witted. 

•  ••••••• 

Frederick  Delius,  a  Yorkshireman,  has  chosen  to  live 
most  of  his  artistic  life  abroad,  and  for  this  reason  is 
not  familiarly  known  to  his  countrymen,  though  he  is  a 
great  personage  in  European  music.  A  pale  man,  ascetic, 
monkish  ;  a  man  with  a  waspish  wit ;  a  man  who  allows 
his  wit  to  run  away  with  him  so  far  that  he  is  tempted  to 
express  opinions  he  does  not  really  hold. 

I  met  him  for  a  short  hour  in  Liverpool,  where,  over 
food  and  drink  snatched  between  a  rehearsal  and  a 
concert,  he  showed  a  keen  intellect  and  a  fine  strain  of 
malice.  Like  most  men  of  genius,  he  is  curiously  self- 
centred,  and  I  gathered  from  his  remarks  that  he  is  not 
particularly  interested  in  any  music  except  his  own.  He 
is  (or  was)  greatly  esteemed  in  German)',  and  if  in  his 
own  country  he  has  not  a  large  following,  he  alone  is  to 
blame. 

He  is  a  man  who  pursues  a  path  of  his  own,  indifferent 
to  criticism,  and  perhaps  indifferent  to  indifference. 
Decidedly  a  man  of  most  distinguished  intellect  and  a 
quick,  eager  but  not  responsive  personality,  but  not  a 
musician  who  marks  an  epoch  as  does  Richard  Strauss, 


252  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

and  not  a  man  who  has  formed  a  school,  as  Debussy  has 

done. 

..  ...... 

Joseph  Holbrooke,  for  sheer  cleverness,  for  capacity 
for  hard  work,  and  for  intellectual  energy,  has  no  equal 
among  our  composers.  It  was  Newman  who  first  spoke 
to  me  about  him,  and  it  was  Newman  who  made  me  curious 
to  meet  this  extraordinary  genius. 

Holbrooke's  weakness — but  I  do  not  consider  it  a 
weakness — is  his  pugnacity.  He  has  fought  the  critics 
times  without  number  and,  in  many  cases,  with  excellent 
results  for  British  music,  though  Holbrooke  must  know 
much  better  than  I  do  that  in  fighting  for  his  colleagues 
he  has  incidentally  injured  himself.  A  chastised  critic 
is  the  last  person  in  the  world  likely  to  write  a  fair  and 
unbiassed  article  on  a  new  work  produced  by  the  hand 
that  chastised  him.  But  not  only  the  critics  have  felt 
the  lash  of  Holbrooke's  Scorn :  conductors,  musical 
institutions,  some  very  prosperous  so-called  composers, 
committees,  publishers  and,  indeed,  almost  every  kind 
of  man  who  has  power  in  the  musical  world,  have  felt  his 


sting 


But  if  he  is  clever  and  witty  in  his  writing,  he  is  much 
cleverer  and  wittier  in  his  talk.  I  do  not  suppose  I 
shall  ever  forget  one  Sunday  I  spent  with  him,  for  by 
midday  he  had  reduced  my  mind  to  chaos  and  my  body 
to  limpness  by  his  consuming  energy.  When  he  was  not 
playing,  he  was  talking,  and  he  did  both  as  though  the 
day  were  the  last  he  was  going  to  spend  on  earth,  so  eager 
and  convulsive  was  his  speech,  so  vehement  his  playing. 

Perhaps  his  most  remarkable  quality  is  his  power 
of  concentration.  I  remember  his  telling  me  that  when 
he  was  yachting  with  Lord  Howard  de  Walden  in  the 
Mediterranean,  he  was  engaged  on  the  composition  of 
Dylan,  an  opera  containing  some  of  the  most  gorgeous 
and  weirdly  uncanny  music  that  has  been  written  in  our 


SOME  MORE  MUSICIANS  253 

generation.  At  this  opera  "he'  worked,  not  in  hours  of 
inspiration  (for,  like  Arnold  Bennett,  he  does  not  believe 
in  inspiration),  but  when  he  had  nothing  more  exciting 
or  more  necessary  to  do.  For  example,  he  would  begin 
work  in  the  morning,  cheerfully  and  without  regret  lay 
down  his  pen  at  lunch-time,  return  to  his  music  immediately 
lunch  was  finished,  and  unhesitatingly  recommence 
writing  at  the  point  at  which  he  had  left  off.  Interrup- 
tions that  arouse  the  anger  of  the  ordinary  creative  artist 
do  not  disturb  him  in  the  least.  He  can  work  just  as 
composedly  and  as  fluently  when  a  heated  argument  is 
being  conducted  in  the  room  as  he  can  in  a  room  that 
is  absolutely  quiet.  Music,  indeed,  flows  from  him,  and  if 
moods  come  to  him  which  render  his  brain  numb  and  his 
soul  barren,  I  doubt  if  they  last  more  than  a  day  or  two. 

Of  the  truly  vast  quantity  of  music  he  has  written,  I, 
to  my  regret,  know  only  a  portion,  and  that  belongs 
chiefly  to  his  very  earfy  period,  when  he  was  under  the 
influence  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe.  Poe  is  his  spiritual  affinity, 
and  Holbrooke's  setting  of  Annabel  Lee — a  work  which  I 
can  play  backwards  from  memory — is  more  beautiful 
and  haunting  than  the  beautiful  and  haunting  poem  itself. 

I  have  called  Holbrooke  pugnacious  and,  some  years 
ago,  much  to  his  amusement  and,  I  think,  gratification, 
I  called  him  the  stormy  petrel  of  music.  But  what  makes 
him  stormy  ?  What  are  the  defects  in  our  musical  life 
that  he  so  persistently  attacks  ?  First  of  all,  he  hates 
incompetence,  especially  official  incompetence,  and  the 
incompetence  that  makes  vast  sums  of  money.  He  hates 
commercialism  in  art,  and  by  that  phrase  I  mean  the 
various  enterprises  that  exploit  art  for  the  sole  purpose 
of  making  money.  He  hates  publishers  who  issue  trash  ; 
he  hates  critics  who  write  rubbish.  He  hates  the  obscurity 
in  which  so  many  of  his  gifted  colleagues  live,  and  he  hates 
the  love  of  the  British  public  for  foreign  music  inferior 
to  that  which  is  being  written  at  home.     And  I  believe 


254  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

he  hates  the  system  that  presents  editors  of  newspapers 
with  free  concert  tickets  for  the  use  of  their  critics. 

But,  in  dwelling  at  such  length  on  Holbrooke's  com- 
bativeness,  I  feel  I  am  giving  a  rather  one-sided  view 
of  his  true  character.  For  he  is  not  all  hate.  Indeed, 
it  is  true  to  state  that  no  composer  has  written  more  in 
appreciation  of  men  who  may  be  considered  his  rivals. 
He  is  anxious  and  quick  to  study  the  work  of  men  of  the 
younger  generation,  and  whenever  any  of  that  work 
appeals  to  him  he  either  performs  it  in  public  or  writes 
to  the  papers  about  it. 

I  have  heard  him  called  perverse,  unreliable,  injudicious, 
and  many  other  disagreeable  things.  He  may  be.  But 
Holbrooke  is  not  an  angel.  He  is  simply  a  composer 
of  genius  working  under  conditions  that  tend  to  thwart 
and  paralyse  genius. 

•  ••••••• 

Dr  Walford  Davies  !  .  .  .  Well,  what  can  I  say  about 
Dr  Walford  Davies  except  that  he  represents  all  the 
things  in  which  I  have  no  deep  faith  ? — asceticism,  fine- 
fingeredism,  religiosity,  "  mutual  improvement,"  narrow- 
ness of  intellect,  physical  coldness.  I  love  some  of  his 
songs — simple  things  of  exquisite  tenderness,  but  it  would 
be  futile  to  regard  him  as  anything  more  than  a  cultured 
gentleman  with  considerable  musical  gifts. 

On  two  or  three  occasions  I  have  been  thrown  into  his 
company,  but  I  have  never  been  able  to  decide  whether 
he  is  ignorant  of  my  existence  or  whether  he  dislikes  me 
so  intensely  that  he  cannot  bring  himself  to  recognise 
my  existence. 

He  is  terribly  in  earnest — in  earnest  about  Brahms 
and  perhaps  about  Frau  Schumann  also.  He  wrinkles 
his  forehead  about  Brahms  and  poises  a  white  hand  in 
the  air.  .  .  .  Please  do  not  imagine  that  I  do  not  love 
Brahms  :  I  adore  him.  But  Brahms  was  not  God. 
He  was  not  even  a  god.     Whereas  Wagner.  ...  It  was 


SOME  MORE  MUSICIANS  255 

in  1911,  I  think,  that  I  heard  Dr  Walford  Davies  preaching 
about  Brahms.  Now,  if  you  preach  about  Brahms,  you 
are  eternally  lost,  for  you  exclude  both  Wagner  and 
Hugo  Wolf. 

How  exasperating  it  must  be  to  possess  a  temperament 
that  can  accept  only  part  of  what  is  admirable  !  It 
seems  to  me  that  Walford  Davies  distrusts  his  intellect  : 
in  estimating  the  worth  of  music,  he  seems  to  say,  in- 
tellectual standards,  artistic  standards,  are  of  no  value. 
To  him  the  only  sure  test  is  temperamental  affinit)^.  And 
he  wishes  all  temperaments  to  conform  to  his  own 
limitations. 

I  have  seen  Dr  Davies  near  Temple  Gardens  with  choir- 
boys hanging  on  his  arm,  with  choir-boys  prancing  before 
him  and  following  faithfully  behind  him.  A  shepherd 
with  his  sheep  !  I  am  sure  he  exerts  upon  them  what  is 
known  as  a  "  good  influence."  But  in  matters  of  art  how 
bad  that  good  influence  may  be  !  Did  ever  a  worshipper 
of  Wagner  walk  the  rooms  of  the  Y.M.C.A.  ? 

•  •  •  •••  •• 

I  have  a  very  bad  memory  for  the  names  of  public- 
houses  and  hotels  (though  I  love  these  places  dearly),  and 
I  regret  that  I  am  unable  to  recall  the  name  of  that  very 
attractive  hotel  in  Birmingham  where,  early  one  evening, 
Dr  Vaughan  Williams,  travel-stained  and  brown  with  the 
sun,  walked  into  the  lounge  and  began  a  conversation 
with  me.  He  had  walked  an  incredible  distance,  and 
though,  physically,  he  was  very  tired,  his  mind  was  most 
alert,  and  we  fell  to  talking  about  music.  He  told  me 
that  he  had  studied  with  Ravel,  and  when  he  told  me 
this  I  reviewed  in  my  mind  in  rapid  succession  all  Vaughan 
Williams'  compositions  I  could  remember,  trying  to  detect 
in  any  of  them  traces  of  Ravel's  influence.  But  I  was 
unsuccessful.  To  me  he,  with  his  essential  British  down- 
rightness,  his  love  of  space,  his  freedom  from  all  manner- 
isms and  tricks  of  style,  seemed  Ravel's  very  antithesis. 


256  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

Like  myself,  he  had  come  to  Birmingham  to  listen  to 
music,  and  the  following  evening,  after  we  had  heard  a 
long  choral  work  of  Bantock's,  we  had  what  might  have 
developed  into  a  very  hot  argument.  With  him  was 
Dr  Cyril  Rootham,  a  very  charming  and  cultivated 
musician,  and  both  these  composers  were  amazed  and 
amused  when,  having  asked  my  opinion  of  Bantock's 
work,  I  became  dithyrambic  in  its  praise. 

"  But  I  thought  you  were  modern  ?  "  asked  Williams. 

'  I  am  anything  you  please,"  said  I ;  '  when  I  hear 
Richard  Strauss  I  am  modern,  and  when  I  listen  to  Bach 
I  am  prehistoric.     But  why  do  you  ask  ?  " 

"  Moody  and  Sankey,"  murmured  Rootham. 

Williams  laughed. 

"  Good  !  damned  good  !  "  he  exclaimed,  turning  to  his 
companion.      '  You've  got  it.     Hasn't  he,  Cumberland  ?  ' 

"  Got  what  ?  " 

"  It.  Him.  Bantock,  I  mean.  Now,  don't  you  think 
— concede  us  this  one  little  point — don't  you  think  that 
this  thirty-two-part  choral  work  of  Bantock's  is  just 
Moody  and  Sankey  over  again  ?  Glorified,  of  course  : 
gilt-edged,  tooled,  diamond-studded,  bound  in  lizard- 
skin,  if  you  like  :   but  still  Moody  and  still  Sankey." 

I  clutched  the  sleeve  of  a  passing  waiter  and  ordered 
a  double  whisky. 

"  One  can  only  drink,"  said  I.  "  And  when  people 
disagree  so  fundamentally  as  we  do,  whisky  is  the  only 
tipple  that  makes  one  forget." 

But,  either  late  that  night  or  late  the  following  night,  we 
found  music  in  which  we  could  both  take  keen  pleasure. 
Herbert  Hughes  played  us  some  of  his  songs,  and  I 
remember  Samuel  Langford,  breathing  rather  heavily 
behind  me,  becoming  more  and  more  enthusiastic  as  the 
night  wore  on.  Williams,  to  whom  also  the  songs  were 
new,  took  a  vivid  interest  in  them. 

"  I  like  your  Herbert  Hughes,"  said  Langford. 


SOME  MORE  MUSICIANS  257 

"  My  Herbert  Hughes  ?  " 

'  Well,  you  do  rather  monopolise  him.     And  I  don't 
wonder.     He's  what  one  calls  the  .  .  .  the  ..." 

"  The  goods  ?  " 

Langford  laughed  in  his  beard  and  his  eyes  disappeared. 

The  last  glimpse  I  had  of  Vaughan  Williams  was  two 
or  three  years  later,  outside  Hughes'  studio  in  Chelsea. 
We  stood  for  a  minute  in  the  darkened  street. 

"  Going  to  see  Hughes  ?  "  I  asked. 

But  he  was  busy  with  preparations  for  enlisting,  and 
a  few  weeks  later  he,  Hughes  and  myself  and  nearly  all 
our  Chelsea  circle  were  swept  into  the  army. 

In  June  or  July,  1917,  I  missed  Vaughan  Williams  at 
Summerhill,  near  Salonica,  by  a  day.  But  perhaps  when 
the  war  is  finished  .  .  .  ? 

•  ••••••• 

Dr  W.  G.  McNaught,  though  a  musician  of  the  older 
school,  is  one  of  the  youngest,  most  up-to-date  and  most 
powerful  of  our  musical  scholars.  By  one  means  or 
another,  the  influence  of  his  personality  is  felt  in  every 
town  and  village  in  the  British  Isles.  He  is  the  editor  of 
the  best  of  our  musical  papers,  a  faultless  and  ubiquitous 
adjudicator  at  our  great  musical  festivals,  a  witty  and 
most  reliable  writer,  a  profound  scholar,  and  a  man  of 
such  natural  geniality  and  spontaneity  that  he  is  liked  by 
everyone.  As  a  rule,  I  detest  men  who  are  liked  on  all 
hands,  but  I  could  never  detest  Dr  McNaught  even  if  he 
were  to  detest  me  and  tell  me  so. 

I  do  not  remember  when  I  first  met  him,  and  I  do  not 
think  I  have  any  special  anecdotes  to  relate  about  him. 
But,  in  thinking  of  him  now,  and  reviewing  our  friendly 
acquaintanceship  of  eight  or  ten  years,  I  recall  that  I 
have  never  been  able  to  persuade  him  to  take  me  seriously. 
He  has  printed  all  the  articles  I  have  sent  him,  but  he  has 
always  laughed  indulgently  at  both  them  and  me.  I 
cannot  help  wondering  why.     Perhaps  his  exasperatingly 

R 


258  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

clever  son  has  betrayed  the  secrets  I  have  entrusted  to  him  : 
the  facts  that  my  piano-playing  is  amateurish,  my  scholar- 
ship nil,  and  my  ear  fatally  defective.  And  I  think  I 
once  showed  McNaught,  jun.,  some  of  my  compositions. 
One  should  never  show  (but  of  course  I  mean  "  show  off  ") 
one's  compositions  when  one  cannot  compose. 

Unless  you  are  something  of  a  musician  yourself,  you 
will  probably  never  have  heard  the  name  of  Julius  Harrison, 
for  though  he  has  fame  of  a  kind,  and  of  the  best  kind, 
he  is  scarcely  known  to  the  man  in  the  street.  Just  as 
Rossetti  is  primarily  a  poet  for  poets,  so  is  Julius  Harrison 
a  musician  for  musicians.  Only  one  word  describes  him  : 
distinguished.  Very  distinguished  he  is,  with  the  refine- 
ment and  sensitiveness  of  a  poet,  the  intuition  of  a  novelist, 
and  the  waywardness  of  all  men  who  allow  themselves  to 
be  governed  by  impulse. 

When  I  first  met  him  he  was  little  more  than  a  brilliant 

boy  full  of  rich  promise.     He  lived  at  Stourport,  where  I 

used  to  go  occasionally  and  pass  a    few  days  with  him 

on  the  river.     I  knew  of  nothing  against  him  save  that 

he  was  an  organist,  and  I  feared  that  he  might  be  tempted 

to  remain  an  organist  and  build  up  a  teaching  "  practice," 

just  as  a  doctor  builds  up  a  practice.     But  I  was  mistaken. 

He  ventured  on  London,  suffered  obscurity  for  a  year  or 

two,  worked  like  a  fiery  little  devil,  and  at  length  threw 

up  the  hack-work  that  kept  him  alive.     Then  he  emerged, 

very  engaging  and  very  likeable,  into  the  real   musical 

world  of  London.     Sir  Thomas  Beecham  gave  him  Tristan 

und  Isolde  and    other   operas  to   conduct,   the   London 

Philharmonic  Society  invited  him  to  interpret  to  it  one 

of  his  own  works,  and   concerts  devoted  entirely  to  his 

compositions  were  given  in  several  provincial  towns.     In 

five  years  he  will  be  recognised  as  the  greatest  conductor 

England  has  yet  given  us  ;    in  ten  years  he  will  have  a 

European  reputation  as  a  composer. 


SOME  MORE  MUSICIANS  259 

What  is  he  like  ?  He  is  mercurial,  passionate,  loyal, 
snobbish,  charming,  outspoken,  very  open  to  his 
friends. 

"  I  am  snobbish,  Gerald  ;  we  have  agreed  about  that, 
so  you  won't  quarrel  with  me,  will  you  ?  "  he  has  asked 
several  times. 

"  Apropos  ?  "  I  have  answered. 

"  Well,  I  really  can't  stick  your  pal,  So-and-so.  An 
out-and-out  bounder." 

"  Yes,  Julius.  But  he  bounds  so  beautifully.  Besides, 
he  has  real  talent." 

"  But  you'll  never  ask  me  to  meet  him,  will  you  ?  " 

"  When  I'm  rich,  Julius,  I  shall  have  two  flats — one 
where  you  and  your  friends  can  come,  and  another  where 
my  bounderish  friends  may  foregather.  But  I'm  afraid 
I  shall  be  oftener  at  the  flat  you  visit  than  at  the  other. 
You  are  a  beast — what  makes  you  so  snobbish  ?  And 
why  do  you  continue  to  like  me,  who  am  not  '  quite  '  a 
gentleman  in  your  eyes  ?  ' 

"  Oh,  but  you  are,  Gerald.  Well,  perhaps  you're  not. 
Only  in  your  case  it  doesn't  seem  to  matter.  You  arc 
so  full  of  affectations — jolly  little  affectations,  I  admit, 
but  still  ..." 

I  don't  think  anything  will  break  our  friendship,  for 
Julius  is  good  and  generous  enough  to  allow  me  to  say 
the  rudest  things  in  the  world  to  him.  He  only  laughs. 
For  my  part,  I  can  forgive  him  anything,  for  he  admires 
my  poems.  And  I  suppose  he  will  always  forgive  me  much 
for  I  admire  without  stint  his  genius  as  a  conductor  and 
his  genius  as  a  composer.  I  think  that  at  heart  he  will 
always  remain  a  boy,  a  boy  full  of  passionate  dignity, 
of  untarnished  ideals,  of  frequent  impulses. 

Of  all  unhappy  artists  the  most  unhappy  are  those  who 
are  impelled  by  temperament  to  mingle  social  propaganda 
with  their  artistic  work.     Rutland  Boughton  has  the  soul 


260  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

of  the  artist-preacher.  He  has  persuaded  me  to  many 
things  :  he  almost  persuaded  me  to  "  try  "  vegetarianism, 
and  I  remember  one  morning  very  well  when,  sitting  on 
the  end  of  my  bed,  he  pointed  a  finger  at  me  and  enumer- 
ated all  the  evils  that  infallibly  follow  on  the  immoderate 
drinking  of  whisky. 

I  regret  this  tendency  in  him  :    it  does  not  strengthen 
his  art,  and  it  exhausts  a  good  deal  of  his  energy  and  time. 
A   practical   mystic,  a  man   of  intense    and    sometimes 
difficult  moods,  a  man  so  honest  himself  that  he  is  in- 
capable of  suspecting  dishonesty  in  others,  a  man  who 
is  always  poor,  for  he  loves  his  art  better  than  riches  : 
he  is  all  these  things.     Now,  a  man  who  endures  poverty 
as  cheerfully  as  he  may,  who  is  continually  bashing  his 
head  against  the  brick- wall  indifference  of  others,  and  who 
at  the  same  time  is  extraordinarily  sensitive,  may  seek 
happiness,   but,   if   he   does,   it   will   always   elude  him. 
Boughton,  of  course,  would  deny  this.     I  can  hear  him 
saying :      "  But    of    course    I'm    happy !  "     At    times, 
Rutland,  you  are  happy.     You  are  happy  when  you  are 
immersed  in  a  new  composition,  when  you  are  playing 
Beethoven  (do  you  remember  that  evening  when,  on  a 
poorish  piano,  you  played  so  bravely  a  couple  of  sonatas 
for  Edward  Carpenter  and  me  ?),  when  you  are  lecturing, 
when  you  have  made  a  convert.     But  when  you  believe, 
as  you  do,  that  the  world  is  awry,  has  always  been  awry, 
and  shows  every  sign  of  continuing  indefinitely  to  be 
awry,  how  can  you,  with  your  ardour  for  rightness,  for 
justice,  for  goodness,  be  happy  ? 

For  years  Boughton  has  done  very  special  Festival  work 
at  Glastonbury  where,  when  the  war  has  spent  itself,  I 
hope  to  go  for  a  week's  music,  for  at  Glastonbury  strange 
things  are  being  done — things  that  are  destined,  perhaps, 
to  divert  in  some  measure  the  stream  of  our  native  music. 

In  the  early  days  of  August,  1914,  Boughton  burst 
into   my  flat.     I  was  still  in  civilian  clothes  and  was 


SOME  MORE  MUSICIANS  261 

reading  Ernest  Dowson  to  discover  how  he  stood  the 
war  atmosphere  :   I  thought  he  stood  it  very  well. 

"  What,  Gerald  !  "  Boughton  exclaimed  ;  "not  enlisted 
yet  ?  " 

"  My  dear  chap,"  I  protested,  "  I  am  old  and  married 
and  have  a  family.  Besides,  I  don't  like  killing  people  : 
I've  tried  it.     And  I  strongly  object  to  being  killed." 

"  Oh,  you  can  help  without  killing  people.  There's 
the  A.S.C.,  for  example." 

"  A.S.C.  ?    What's  that  ?  " 

"I'm  going  to  enlist  as  a  cook.     Come  along  with  me." 

But  I  told  him  that  I  was  reading  Dowson,  that  I  was 
presently  going  to  read  a  volume  of  JE,  and  after  that  I 
had  the  fullest  intention  of  strangling  Debussy  on  the 
piano. 

So  he  went  away  to  enlist  as  a  cook.  I  heard,  however, 
that  when  he  was  told  that,  in  addition  to  his  duties  as  an 
army  cook,  he  might  be  called  upon  to  slaughter  animals, 
he  came  away  sad  and  dejected,  and,  I  think,  turned  his 
mind  to  other  things. 

W^here  he  is  now,  I  do  not  know.  The  war  has  blotted 
most  of  us  out,  and  few  men  know  whether  their  best 
friends  are  at  the  other  end  of  the  world  or  fighting  in  the 
trenches  in  the  very  next  sector  on  their  right  or  left. 

I  have  said  somewhere  that  singers  do  not  interest 
me.  Nor  do  they.  But  John  Coates  is  something  more 
than  a  singer — superb  artist,  generous  friend,  unflagging 
enthusiast,  maker  of  reputations.  He  is  at  once  a  grown- 
up boy  full  of  high  spirits  and  a  profound  mystic.  There 
are  many  men  who  have  seen  him  on  the  stage  in  some 
light  opera  who  have  never  guessed  that  his  buoyant 
spirits  are  the  outcome  of  a  soul  that  is  content  with  its 
own  destiny.  To  me,  his  interpretation  of  Elgar's 
Gerontius  is  one  of  the  great  things  of  modern  times — as 
great   as  Ackte's  Salome,  as  great  as  Kreisler's  violin- 


262  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

playing,  as  wonderful  as  the  genius  of  Augustus  John. 
"  Honest  John  Coates  !  '  is  his  title  :  I  have  heard  him 
so  described  many  times  in  London  and  the  provinces. 
A  man  you  can  trust  with  anything  :  a  very  fine  and  noble 
gentleman,  humble  yet  proud. 

His  reverence  for  Elgar  is  extraordinary.  I  have  been 
told  that,  on  one  occasion,  after  being  in  the  company 
of  the  distinguished  composer  for  an  hour  or  so,  he  joined 
a  few  friends  who  were  sitting  in  another  room. 

"  I  have  just  been  talking  to  the  greatest  man  living," 
said  he,  with  deep  impressiveness  and  in  the  manner  of  one 
who  has  been  in  the  presence  of  someone  holy. 

I  love  such  hero-worship.  The  man  who  can  feel  as 
Coates  does  about  Elgar  is  himself  noble  and  not  far 
removed  from  greatness. 

Cyril  Scott  possesses  a  mind  of  such  exquisite  refinement 
that  it  can  react  only  to  the  most  delicate  of  appeals.  He 
is  perhaps  a  little  exotic,  like  his  swaying  and  deliciously 
scented  Lotus  Flower.  Many  years  ago  I  was  introduced 
to  his  music,  and  in  pre-war  days  I  very  rarely  let  a  week 
go  by  without  playing  something  of  his.  On  only  one 
occasion  was  I  thrown  into  his  company,  and  even  then  I 
was  not  aware  of  the  identity  of  the  somewhat  excited  and, 
to  me,  extraordinarily  interesting  man  who  sat  restlessly 
in  his  chair  and  spoke  a  little  vehemently.  He  struck  me 
as  a  man  easily  carried  away  by  his  ideals,  carried  away 
into  a  world  where  logic  is  useless  and  facts  are  worse 
than  dust. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
PEOPLE  I  WOULD  LIKE  TO  MEET 

I  SUPPOSE  that  even  the  most  outrageously  sincere 
of  men  are  to  some  extent  poseurs,  if  not  to  them- 
selves, then  to  other  people.  The  artistic  tempera- 
ment must  either  attitudinise  or  die.  Posturing  is  the 
most  delicate,  the  most  dangerous,  of  all  the  arts.  To 
pose  before  others  is  risky,  but  to  pose  before  oneself  is 
most  hazardous,  for  no  one  in  the  world  is  so  easy  to 
deceive,  and  so  ready  to  be  deceived,  as  oneself,  and  to  be 
deluded  by  a  fancy  picture  that  one  has  drawn  and  painted 
in  hectic  moments  is  to  appear  to  the  world  as  a  fantastic 
clown. 

Deluded  thus,  it  appears  to  me,  is  W.  B.  Yeats.  He  is, 
of  course,  a  fine  though  not  a  great  poet  :  no  reasonable 
man  can  question  that.  And  there  are  lines  and  verses 
of  his  that  have  become  woven  into  the  very  texture  of 
my  mind.  Moreover,  I  recognise  that  it  is  futile  to  quarrel 
with  a  man  because  he  is  not  other  than  he  is.  Yet  I 
do  quarrel  with  him.  I  remember  a  photograph  of  Yeats, 
a  photograph  I  have  not  seen  for  ten  or  twelve  years, 
wherein  he  appears  conscious  of  nothing  in  the  world  but 
himself,  conscious  of  nothing  but  his  hair,  his  eyes,  his 
hands  —  especially  his  hands.  His  fingers  are  so  long 
that  one  is  surprised  that,  his  palm  resting  on  his  knee, 
they  do  not  reach  to  the  floor.  It  is,  I  concede,  a  human 
weakness  for  a  man  whom  Natuie  has  gifted  (or  do  I  mean 
cursed  ?)  with  the  appearance  of  a  poet,  to  play  up  to 
Nature  and  help  her  by  delicate  titivations.  But  to  do 
this  successfully,  one  must  have  an  overwhelming  person- 

263 


264  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

ality — a  personality  like  that  of  Shelley,  of  Byron,  of 
Swinburne.  It  is  a  simple  matter  to  look  like  a  poet, 
but  to  impose  that  look  on  mankind  is  given  to  few.  It 
is  not  given  to  W.  B.  Yeats. 

How  is  it,  I  wonder,  that  one  rather  admires  JE  for 
believing  in  the  objective  existence  of  strange  gods  and 
spirits,  and  yet  despises  Yeats  for  sharing  this  belief  ? 
It  is,  I  think,  because  one  feels  that  M  has  a  solid, 
even  massive,  intellect  controlling  his  fantasy,  whereas 
Yeats'  intellect  is  not  distinguished  either  by  subtlety  or 
massiveness.  Yeats  believes  what  he  wishes  to  believe  ; 
M  believes  only  what  he  must.  Yeats  has  an  incurable 
.  aching  for  the  picturesque,  and  whilst  he  believes  that  he 
is  "  helped  "  by  the  supernatural,  I  think  that  this  help 
is  derived  from  his  own  imaginings,  if  indeed  the  question 
of  "  help  "  comes  in  at  all. 

Why,  then,  should  I  wish  to  meet  this  man  whom,  it  is 
clear,  I  regard  as  self-deluded  and  for  whom  my  respect 
is  mingled  with  a  feeling  that  is  not  very  far  removed  from 
dislike  ?  Really,  I  do  not  know.  His  attitude  of  mind 
is  not  uncommon,  and  I  have  met  many  men  and  women 
his  equal  in  intellectual  force.  I  think  that  perhaps  I 
wish  to  study  at  first  hand  a  mind  that  is  so  exquisite  in 
its  refinement,  so  sensitive  in  its  moods,  so  invariably  right 
in  its  choice  of  words.  From  all  the  tens  of  thousands  of 
words  that  exist,  how  difficult  it  is  to  select  the  one  word 
that  is  inevitable  !  And  how  slender  and  fragile  a  man's 
work  becomes  when  his  mind  must  perforce  invariably 
pounce  upon  the  one  only  word  !  The  great  writers  were 
not  so  fastidious.  Scott,  Byron,  Shelley,  Keats,  Balzac 
and  a  hundred  others  :  take,  if  you  wish,  any  half-dozen 
words  from  almost  any  page  of  their  writings  and  substitute 
six  others,  and  what  will  be  lost  thereby  ?  Scott  and 
Byron  and  Balzac,  and  even  Shelley  and  Keats,  have,  I 
think,  not  more  than  a  hundred  or  so  pages  that  could 
not  with  safety  be  tampered  with  in  this  manner. 


PEOPLE  I  WOULD  LIKE  TO  MEET    265 

There  is  something  lily-fingered  and,  to  me,  something 
disagreeable  and  effeminate  in  a  writer  who,  at  all  times 
and  seasons,  searches  and  burrows  for  the  mot  juste.  I 
am  curious  about  such  writers,  curious  though  I  know 
instinctively  that  they  love  letters  more  than  they  love 
life.  To  me  such  men  are  incomprehensible,  and  in  them, 
somewhere,  something  is  wrong.  Men  who  do  not  feel 
lust  for  life  have  thin  necks,  or  shallow  pates,  or  neuras- 
thenia. .  .  .  Perhaps,  after  all,  I  am  something  of  a 
student  of  nerve  trouble,  and  wish  to  meet  Yeats  in  order 
to  satisfy  myself  what  precisely  is  lacking  in  him. 

•  ••••••• 

It  is  a  popular  fallacy  that  versatility  is  invariably 
accompanied  by  shallowness,  whereas,  of  course,  almost 
all  men  of  great  genius  have  been  peculiarly  and  even 
marvellously  versatile.  For  me,  versatility  has  most 
powerful  attraction.  The  man  with  only  one  talent  is 
as  uninteresting  as  the  man  with  no  talent  at  all.  Perhaps 
Hilaire  Belloc  has  retained  his  hold  on  me  because  he  is 
continually  surprising  me.  He  has  done  so  many  different 
and  opposed  things  so  admirably,  that  it  seems  impossible 
he  should  strike  out  in  yet  another  line  ;  but  I  know  very 
well  that  before  twelve  months  have  gone  he  will  have 
turned  his  amazing  powers  in  still  another  direction,  and 
will  accomplish  his  task  better  than  any  other  living  man 
can  do  it. 

Nearly  twenty  years  have  gone  since  early  one  spring 
I  walked  alone  across  Devon  from  Ilfracombe  to  Exeter 
and  from  Exeter  to  Land's  End.  Now,  I  went  alone 
simply  because  Belloc  had  walked  alone  across  much  of 
France  and  Italy,  and  the  spirit  of  imitation  was  then, 
as  it  is  now,  very  strong  within  me.  I  had  just  read  his 
glorious  Path  to  Rome,  and  I  carried  a  copy  of  the  first 
edition  in  my  haversack,  reading  it  by  the  wayside  and 
forgetting  my  loneliness  (for  I  was  many  times  pathetically 
lonely)  in  Belloc's  most  excellent  company.     I  pondered 


266  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

over  the  nature  of  this  man  for  many  hours,  envying  him, 
and  thinking  that  a  man  with  such  great  and  diverse 
gifts  must  be  reckoned  among  the  happiest  people  alive. 
I  remember  that  during  the  weeks  I  walked  in  Devon  and 
Cornwall  I  copied  him  as  far  as  I  could  in  the  most  minute 
particular,  and  at  Clovelly,  one  golden  evening  as  I  stood 
talking  with  some  tall,  Spanish-looking  fishermen,  I 
suddenly  made  up  my  mind  that  I  would  write  to  him.  I 
do  not  know  what  I  wrote,  but  a  couple  of  days  later  a 
reply  came  from  him  telling  me  that  my  letter  had  given 
him  more  pleasure  than  any  of  the  enthusiastic  reviews 
in  the  papers.  This  letter  I  pasted  in  my  copy  of  The 
Path  to  Rome,  and  in  1915  a  friend  begged  me  to  allow  him 
to  take  it  with  him  to  France.  He  had  a  copy  of  his  own, 
but  he  wished  to  take  mine.  That  friend  (our  worship 
of  Belloc  was  one  of  the  many  things  we  had  in  common) 
now  lies  dead,  and  I  like  to  think  that  his  comrades  buried 
my  precious  book  with  him. 

My  imitation  of,  and  devotion  to,  Belloc  led  me  into 
several  amusing  scrapes,  and  I  recollect  arriving  ruefully 
at  Helston  one  wet  afternoon  and  seeking  shelter  at  an 
inn  called,  I  think,  The  Angel.  Having  arranged  to 
proceed  to  Penzance  by  train  early  in  the  evening,  I  went 
to  bed  whilst  they  dried  my  clothes.  Whilst  in  bed,  I 
recalled  that  Belloc  had  often  praised  Beaune  and  that  I 
had  never  tasted  it.  So  I  ordered  a  bottle,  drank  it  at 
about  4  p.m.— and  promptly  went  to  sleep  for  twelve 
hours  ! 

Even  now,  on  the  borderland  of  middle  age,  I  cannot 
pick  up  a  new  book  of  Belloc's  without  a  little  thrill : 
he  is  so  clean,  so  bravely  prejudiced,  so  courageous.  He 
is  a  lover  of  wine  and  beer,  of  literature,  of  the  Sussex 
downs,  of  the  great  small  things  of  life  :  a  mystic,  a  man 
of  affairs,  a  poet.  What,  indeed,  is  he  not  that  is  fine  and 
noble  and  free  ? 


PEOPLE  I  WOULD  LIKE  TO  MEET    267 

In  the  musical  world  one  is  accustomed  to  infant 
prodigies  ;  very  rarely  do  they  develop  their  powers. 
But  in  the  literary  world  infant  prodigies  are  rare,  and 
at  the  moment  I  can  recall  among  writers  of  the  past  the 
boy  Chatterton  and  that  not  quite  so  remarkable  but, 
nevertheless,  very  distinguished  youth,  Oliver  Madox 
Brown.  In  our  own  days  we  have  had  two  or  three  men 
of  letters  whose  first  work,  written  in  their  late  teens  or 
early  twenties,  promised  more,  I  think,  than  their  later 
books  have  fulfilled.  I  am  thinking  more  particularly 
of  Edwin  Pugh  and  William  Romaine  Paterson,  the  latter 
of  whom  usually  writes  under  the  pseudonym  of  "  Benjamin 
Swift." 

Many  of  us  must  remember  Benjamin  Swift's  Nancy 
Noon,  a  strange  novel  that  jerked  the  literary  world  into 
excitement  two  decades  ago.  The  writer  of  it  was  but 
a  boy,  and  though  a  few  critics  declared  that  he  "  derived  " 
from  Meredith,  it  was  almost  universally  acknowledged 
that,  for  sheer  originality  both  in  style  and  in  its  general 
outlook  upon  the  world,  the  novel  was  head  and  shoulders 
above  any  contemporary  literature.  So  we  all  kept  a 
close  watch  upon  Benjamin  Swift,  reading  each  fresh  work 
(and  there  were  many  fresh  works,  for  the  new-comer  was 
very  productive)  with  an  eager  anticipation  which,  alas  ! 
was  foiled  again  and  again.  I  remember  six  or  eight  of 
his  books,  each  lit  with  genius,  but  all  a  little  crude  and 
violent  and  not  one  of  them  indicating  that  the  writer's 
mind  was  becoming  more  mature.  It  was  a  vigorous, 
eruptive  mind  with  which  one  was  in  contact,  but  it  was 
also  a  mind  in  such  incessant  turmoil  that  one  searched 
in  vain  in  each  of  its  products  for  that  "  point  of  rest ' 
which  Coventry  Patmore  maintains  is  a  sine  qua  non  of 
all  fine  works  of  art. 

["In  some  way  that  I  forget  Benjamin  Swift  and  I  got 
into  correspondence,  and  I  still  possess  a  bundle  of  his 
letters,  mostly  about  his  work.     I  remember  that  in  one 


268  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

of  my  letters  I  ventured  to  indicate  what  I  thought  were 
some  of  his  faults  :  I  called  in  question  his  knowledge  of 
music,  I  expressed  disapproval  of  his  violence,  and  I  told 
him  I  feared  that  he  was  in  danger  of  settling  down  to 
being  a  mere  "  eccentric  "  writer.  My  letter,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  produced  no  effect,  and  though  I 
have  not  read  his  latest  works  (in  dug-outs  and  trenches 
one  reads  everything  that  comes  to  hand,  but  Benjamin 
Swift  has  to  be  sought),  I  am  given  to  understand  that 
they  are  in  many  ways  like  his  first  efforts — outri,  violent, 
eruptive,  yet  distinguished  and  glowing  here  and  there 
with  a  genius  that  is  always  hectic. 

Years  ago,  Swift  invited  me  to  call  on  him  whenever  I 
should  happen  to  be  in  town,  and  though  I  should  very 
much  like  to  meet  him,  I  have  never  accepted  his  invita- 
tion. One  is  like  that.  One  shrinks  from  satisfying  one's 
curiosity.  I  picture  Benjamin  Swift  as  bearing  a  resem- 
blance to  Strindberg,  but  in  my  mind's  eye  his  lips  are 
thinner  and  straighter  than  Strindberg's,  and  his  eyes 
are  more  vehement. 

What  is  it,  I  wonder,  that  prevents  this  writer  from 
ranking  among  the  great  ?  His  intellect  is  wide  and 
deep  enough,  his  literary  talent  is  very  considerable,  and 
his  experience  of  life  has  been  exceptionally  varied. 
There  is  a  twist  in  his  genius,  a  maggot  in  his  brain.  He 
sees  life  grotesquely  ;  some  of  the  people  he  creates  are 
like  the  men  and  women  one  meets  in  nightmares. 

•  ••••••• 

Sometimes  I  amuse  myself  by  inventing  conversations 
between  people  opposed  in  temperament — e.g.  Sir  Owen 
Seaman  and  Mr  Hall  Caine,  Mr  John  Galsworthy  and 
"  Marmaduke,"  Little  Tich  and  Lord  Morley,  and  I  often 
wish  a  brain  much  brighter  than  my  own  (Mr  Max 
Beerbohm's,  for  example)  would  occupy  its  idle  hours  in 
writing  a  book  of  such  conversations.  I  commend  the 
idea  to  Mr  E.  V.  Lucas,  also,  and  to  Messrs  A.  M.  Milne 


PEOPLE  I  WOULD  LIKE  TO  MEET    269 

and  Bernard  Shaw  (only  Shaw's  fun  in  apt  to  be  so 
distressingly  emphatic  and  double-fisted). 

Among  the  dead,  I  make  Sir  Richard  Burton  meet  and 
talk  with  Herbert  Spencer,  and  I  always  call  this  con- 
versation The  Man  and  the  Mummy.  It  is  strange,  but 
we  have  not,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  any  record  of  Burton's 
rich  and  provocative  conversation,  though  I  have  been 
assured  by  men  who  knew  him  well  that  his  talk  was  the 
best  they  had  heard.  Sir  Richard  Burton  is  one  of  the 
men  whom  I  most  wish  to  meet,  and  perhaps  when  my 
happy  sojourn  on  this  planet  comes  to  a  close,  I  shall 
be  allowed  to  serve  him  in  some  humble  capacity.  To 
me  he  has  always  seemed  to  belong  to  Elizabethan  times, 
and  I  think  that  he  must  often  have  cursed  at  Fate  for 
placing  him  in  the  middle  of  a  century  that  could  not  fully 
understand  or  appreciate  him. 

In  our  own  days  we  have  many  young  men  of  a  spirit 
akin  to  that  of  Burton,  though  not  one  of  them  may 
possess  a  tithe  of  his  genius  or  of  his  colossal  intellect. 
I  refer,  of  course,  to  our  numerous  soldier-poets — gallant 
young  men  of  thought  and  action,  of  quick  and  generous 
sympathy,  of  noble  aspiration.  Most  of  you  who  read 
what  I  am  now  writing  must  know  at  least  one  man 
belonging  to  this  type,  for  there  are  hundreds,  perhaps 
thousands,  of  them — men  who,  but  for  the  war,  would 
probably  never  have  written  a  line  of  poetry,  but  whose 
souls  have  been  stirred  and  whose  hearts  have  been  fired 
by  the  grandest  emotion  that  can  urge  mankind  to  self- 
sacrifice  :  I  mean  the  never-dying  emotion  of  patriotism 
— that  emotion  at  which  the  sexless  sneer,  which  the 
"  cosmopolitan  "  regards  with  amusement,  and  for  which 
men  of  imagination  and  grit  gladly  die. 

One  soldier  of  this  type  I  knew  intimately,  and  I  would 
gladly  know  many  of  those  others  who  have  thrilled  us 
with  their  poems.  Let  me  describe  my  friend  to  you. 
He  is  no  longer  young  :  his  precise  age  is  thirty-five  :  but 


270  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

he  was  among  those  who,  early  in  August,  1914,  after 
first  putting  his  small  affairs  in  order,  enlisted  in  Lord 
Kitchener's  Army.  He  made  no  fuss  about  it,  and  told 
none  but  his  most  intimate  friends  what  he  had  done. 
I  met  him  a  few  months  after  he  had  joined  up  ;  he  was 
then  a  Corporal,  and  seemed  to  me  the  happiest  man  I 
had  met  for  many  a  day.  He  told  me  that  he  had  begun 
to  write  "  seriously,"  for  hitherto  his  scribbling  had  been 
of  a  cursory  and  trivial  nature.  But  he  showed  me  none 
of  his  work,  and  it  was  not  until  he  had  been  in  France 
some  little  time  that  his  verses  began  to  appear  in  one  or 
two  reviews.  Having  been  granted  a  commission,  he 
quickly  rose  to  the  rank  of  Captain.  He  was  mentioned 
in  dispatches  twice  and,  having  led  a  particularly  successful 
bombing  raid  on  the  enemy's  trenches,  was  awarded  the 
Military  Cross. 

There  is,  I  know,  nothing  very  unusual  in  this  bare  record 
as  I  have  set  it  down  ;  the  unusual,  indeed  extraordinary, 
nature  of  this  case  is  that  before  the  war  my  friend  had 
been  a  reserved,  unadventurous  but  very  capable  bank 
clerk,  quite  undistinguished  and  apparently  without 
ambition.  But  hidden  fires  must  from  his  youth  have 
been  smouldering  in  his  heart,  and  it  required  the  war's 
disturbance  and  excitement  to  blow  these  ashes  into 
flame,  and  the  war's  opportunity  was  needed  to  disclose 
of  what  fine  material  he  was  made.  I  flatter  myself  that 
I  had  always  known  his  nature  was  fine  and  distinguished, 
for  though  he  was  a  bank  clerk  one  would  never  have 
guessed  it  from  his  conversation  and  demeanour.  I  also 
know  that,  generations  ago,  his  forbears  played  a  by-no- 
means  ignoble  part  in  our  country's  history,  and  for  that 
reason  alone  I  felt  that,  though  concealed,  there  were 
imagination  and  aspiration  abiding  in  his  soul. 

One  of  my  friends,  Anna  Wickham,  knows  D.  H. 
Lawrence  very  well,   and  one  day   I  asked  her  if  she 


PEOPLE  I  WOULD  LIKE  TO  MEET    271 

would  arrange  for  me  to  meet  him  at  her  house.  But  she 
brushed  aside  the  suggestion  with  the  few  words  that  she 
was  not  particularly  interested  in  Lawrence  and  that  my 
time  might  be  wasted  if  spent  with  him.  Such  a  suggestion 
amazed,  and  still  amazes  me,  and  I  cannot  but  think 
that  Anna  Wickham  had  never  troubled  to  read  any  of 
D.  H.  Lawrence's  writings,  for  it  often  happens  among 
literary  people  that  close  friends  do  not  look  at  each  other's 
work. 

To  me  D.  H.  Lawrence  is  perhaps  the  most  peculiarly 
original  English  writer  living.  In  his  poems  he  is  so 
egoistic  as  almost  to  seem  like  an  egomaniac,  and  in  two 
or  three  of  his  novels  he  is  obsessed  and  overwhelmed  by 
the  passion  of  sex.  Yet  in  Sons  and  Lovers,  and  in  that 
wonderful  first  book  of  his  called,  I  think,  The  Red  Peacock, 
he  gets  clean  away  from  himself,  and  is  as  objective  as  all 
great  creative  artists  are  and  should  be.  Every  writer 
must,  of  course,  portray  life  in  terms  of  himself,  but  only 
small  men  continually  thrust  themselves  and  themselves 
only  on  to  an  embarrassed  public.  But  Lawrence  has  an 
insatiable  curiosity  about  himself,  and  it  seems  at  times 
as  though  he  is  not  anxious  to  discover  or  uncover  life, 
but  to  penetrate  to  the  deeps  of  his  own  nature  and  shout 
out  at  the  top  of  his  voice  what  he  has  found  there.  In 
such  egoism,  there  is,  of  course,  strength  as  well  as  weak- 
ness, and  the  very  fault,  so  grave  and  so  calamitous,  that 
bars  him  from  achieving  great  work  is,  nevertheless,  an 
attraction  to  those  who  are  much  intrigued  by  psychology. 

There  are,  are  there  not  ?  two  kinds  of  imaginative 
literature  :  the  kind  we  read  without  more  than  a  passing 
thought  for  the  man  or  woman  who  has  written  it ;  and 
the  kind  we  read  primarily  because  we  are  enormously 
interested  in  the  personality  and  temperament  of  the  man 
or  woman  from  whom  that  literature  comes.  In  removing 
himself  to  Italy  instead  of  throwing  himself  heart  and  soul 
into  the  ugly  but  extraordinary  life  that  these  years  are 


272  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

giving  us,  D.  H.  Lawrence  is,  I  believe,  evading  his  destiny 
and  is  thereby  weakening  the  gifts  and  tampering  with 
the  intellect  of  a  man  whose  name  should  stand  near  the 
head  of  all  contemporary  writers. 

If  Mr  Lawrence  should  by  chance  read  these  pages,  he 
will  acquit  me  of  impertinence  if  he  remembers  that  he 
has  taken  the  public  into  his  confidence,  and  that  he  must 
expect  the  public  to  make  some  comment  upon  what  he, 
uninvited,  has  told  us. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
NIGHT  CLUBS 

AFTER  what  I  have  written  you  may  find  it  difficult, 
if  not  altogether  impossible,  to  regard  me  as  a 
guileless  youth.  Yet  I  ask  you  so  to  regard  me. 
For,  if  I  be  not  guileless,  how  can  one  explain  the  whole- 
hearted enjoyment  I  used  to  derive  from  my  occasional 
visits  to  the  Crab  Tree  Club  in  Soho,  and  the  Cabaret  Club 
in  Heddon  Street  during  the  twelve  months  before  the 
war  ? 

I  had  been  a  considerable  time  in  London  before  it 
occurred  to  me  that  there  was  any  other  way  of  spending 
the  night  except  in  bed.  Evenings,  of  course,  were  spent 
either  at  home,  the  theatre,  the  Cafe  Royal,  a  concert 
hall,  a  music  hall,  or  at  friends'  flats  and  studios,  and 
though  it  is  true  that  sometimes  friends  induced  you 
to  stay,  or  you  induced  friends  to  stay,  until  dawn, 
yet  these  long  hours  were  never  deliberately  planned 
beforehand. 

But  I  had  the  Cafe  Royal  habit,  and  the  Cafe  Royal,  in 
a  sort  of  way,  used  to  be  an  ante -chamber  to  various 
night  clubs.  At  midnight,  or  shortly  after,  when  I  left 
the  Cafe  with  my  friends,  I  used  to  find  that,  instead  of 
proceeding  to  their  respective  homes,  they  went  to  one 
place  or  another  where  you  made  revelry  and  talked 
nonsense  and,  perchance,  drank  what  proved  at  eight 
o'clock  next  morning  to  have  been  a  little  more  than  was 
good  for  you. 

"  Come  with  us  to  the  Crab  Tree,"  said  two  or  three 
friends  on  one  of  these  occasions. 

s  273 


274  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

And  go  I  did.  It  was  my  very  first  visit  to  a  night  club, 
and  I  expected  to  find  I  know  not  what  scenes  of  dissipa- 
tion and  naughtiness.  I  imagined  that  I  should  meet 
women  even  more  strange  than  some  of  the  strange  women 
of  the  Cafe  Royal,  that  I  should  behold  dresses  so  daring 
that  they  could  no  longer  be  called  dresses  at  all,  that  the 
music  would  be  ravishing,  the  conversation  sparkling, 
the  men  distinguished,  the  food  delicate  beyond  words, 
the  wine  of  a  perfect  bouquet.  Instead,  after  walking 
up  a  flight  of  stairs,  I  found  a  large  bare  room  with  five 
men  in  it,  one  of  them  being  the  bar-tender  who,  behind 
rows  of  bottles  of  whisky  and  stout,  was  polishing  glasses. 
Of  the  other  men,  three  were  members  who  had  just 
arrived,  and  the  fourth  was  the  pianist  who,  later  on,  was 
to  play  rag- time  for  the  dancers. 

I  stood  for  a  moment  on  the  threshold  of  this  empty 
room,  feeling  rather  exasperated  that  I  had  come 
hither. 

"  It's  all  right,"  said  one  of  my  friends,  a  little  pug- 
nacious Scotsman  with  a  nose  and  chin  like  Wagner's  ; 
"  wait  a  bit.     Things  will  soon  brighten  up." 

So  we  stepped  to  the  bar  and  engaged  the  pianist  in 
conversation.  He  was  something  of  a  scholar  and  had 
made  a  study  of  rag- time  from  the  historical  point  of  view. 
He  played  me  two  or  three  examples  of  rag- time  which  he 
declared  occurred  in  Bach,  and  I  accepted  his  word, 
though  I  looked  at  him  incredulously. 

The  note  of  that  night  was  youth.  There  was  no  hectic 
excitement,  no  Bacchic  frenzy :  everybody  was  jolly 
glad  to  be  alive.  Somebody  has  defined  happiness  as 
conscious  pleasure.  If  that  definition  holds  good,  then  I 
was  happy  that  night,  for  I  remember  saying  to  myself : 
"'  I  am  coming  here  again."  I  loved  the  feeling  of  life  the 
place  gave  me  ;  the  exhilaration  of  it  seemed  to  pierce 
into  my  marrow.  I  did  not  want  to  talk  to  anybody. 
I  merely  wanted  to  sit  back  and  watch  everything  :  the 


NIGHT  CLUBS  275 

furtive  smiles  of  half-shy  women  who,  happy  in  the  arms 
of  those  they  loved,  were  afraid  to  reveal  too  much  of 
their  happiness  ;  the  most  delicate  ankles  of  a  slim  girl 
I  knew,  but  whose  name  (was  it  Kitty  or  Mimi  ?)  I  only 
half  remembered ;  the  kaleidoscope  of  colour  on  the 
platform  where  the  dancers  were.  The  women  were  like 
flowers — orchids  suddenly  endowed  with  movement.  .  .  . 
I  compared  the  scene  with  the  spectacle  afforded  me  by 
Murray's  Club  a  few  nights  previously,  when  Ivan  Heald 
and  I  were  taken  there  for  an  hour  or  two.  Some  ladies 
at  Murray's  had  had  green  hair,  but  only  a  poet  like 
Baudelaire  can  wear  green  hair  with  success.  But  at 
Murray's  the  people  were  all  old.  Young  girls  of  twenty 
were  old.  Everybody  was  old  except  the  aged,  and  they 
pranced  and  frisked  to  prove  their  unconquerable  youth. 
.  .  .  But  at  this  jolly  Crab  Tree  youth  was  in  the  air, 
in  the  music,  in  the  laughter. 

And,  feeling  a  little  intoxicated  with  happiness,  I 
allowed  a  gentle  melancholy  to  steal  over  me,  as  one 
sometimes  does  in  certain  moods.  I  thought  of  Paris, 
for  this  scene  reminded  me  of  Paris  :  I  was  full  of  longing 
for  Paris,  and  I  remembered  how  in  the  spring  of  1912 
I  used  to  sit  in  an  attic  in  the  Quarticr  Latin  wondering 
q.nd  wondering.  By  that  curious  power  that  the  mind, 
when  a  little  excited,  seems  to  possess — I  mean  the  power 
of  transferring  one  from  a  scene  where  one  is  happy  to  a 
scene  where  one  would  be  still  happier — I  saw  myself 
aimlessly  strolling  beneath  the  plane-trees  on  the  banks 
of  the  Seine.     I  took  out  a  pencil  and  wrote  : 

PARIS  DAYS 

These  days,  the  bright  days  and  white  days, 

These  nights  of  blue  between  the  days, 

These  streets  a-glimmer  in  the  haze  : 

These  are  for  you,  but  you  come  not  these  ways  : 

Paris  is  empty  in  the  light  days. 


276  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

These  songs,  the  glad  songs  and  sad  songs, 
This  amber  wine  between  the  songs, 
This  scented  laughter  from  dim  throngs : 
These  are  for  you,  Paris  to  you  belongs: 
Paris  is  mournful  with  her  mad  songs. 

These  breezes,  the  high  breezes  and  dry  breezes, 
These  stillnesses  between  the  breezes, 
These  purple  clouds  the  sunset  seizes : 
These  are  for  you,  but  underneath  the  trees  is 
Paris  a-sighing  with  her  shy  breezes. 

These  days,  these  breezes  and  these  nights, 

These  streets,  this  wine,  these  songs,  these  sighs  ; 

Paris  with  all  her  myriad  lights, 

Paris  so  careless  yet  so  wise  : 

All  in  the  black  sea  would  I  spew 

If  I  could  win  an  hour  of  you. 

These  verses  (though  you  would  hardly  think  so)  cost 
me  infinite  trouble,  and  when  I  had  finished  them  I  looked 
up  from  my  scrawl  and  saw  that  the  room  was  half-empty. 

"  Is  it  so  late  then  ?  "  I  asked  a  man  sitting  next  to  me. 
I  saw  it  was  Aleister  Crowley,  and  he  looked  at  me  rather 
balefully. 

"  No  :   so  early.     Six  o'clock,  to  be  precise." 

And  he  turned  his  back  on  me  and  gazed  at  a  wall  on 
which  no  pictures  hung. 

So  I  picked  up  my  straw  hat  and  tried  to  find  my 
Scots  friend.  He  was  sitting  behind  the  piano,  talking- 
very  earnestly  to  a  man  I  did  not  know. 

"  Oh,  Nicol  Bain,"  said  I,  "  I  am  so  hungry." 

The  streets  were  strewn  with  sunshine,  and  Bain  took 
off  his  hat  and  looked  long  and  long  at  the  blue  sky. 

"  How  damned  fine  to  be  alive  !  "  he  exclaimed. 

"  How  long  have  you  been  alive  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Only  since  I  came  to  London." 

"  I  was  alive  for  three  years  in  Manchester,  but  during 
all  those  years  I  sat  at  a  desk  pretending  to  be  a  clerk, 


NIGHT  CLUBS  277 

I  was  dead,  quite  dead.     So,  you  see,  we  really  are  young. 
You  are  about  five,  and  I  am  nearly  seven." 

He  steered  me  into  a  restaurant  which  appeared  to 
cater  specially  for  night-birds,  and  Bain  ate  bacon  and 
eggs,  whilst  I  feasted  on  a  dish  of  strawberries,  brown  bread 
and  coffee. 

'  I  would,"  said  I,  "  much  prefer  to  have  bacon  and 
eggs,  but  strawberries  seem  to  be  more  in  the  picture, 
don't  you  think  ?  I  am  sure  I  am  behaving  very  nobly 
to  fit  into  the  picture  at  the  expense  of  my  yearning  inside. 
.  .  .  And  now,  where  can  we  get  a  bath  ?  " 

After  that  first  visit  I  went  frequently  to  the  Crab 
Tree  Club.  There  I  met  many  poets  and  journalists  and 
artists,  and  there,  one  night,  a  poet — a  great  strapping 
fellow,  all  bone  and  sinew  and  muscle — loudly  challenged 
me  to  fight  him.  He  is  a  man  of  some  genius,  well  known 
both  here  and  in  America.  The  exact  cause  of  his  quarrel 
with  me  I  have  forgotten,  but  it  appeared  that,  unwittingly, 
I  had  done  him  some  real  injury — or  he  thought  I 
had.  He  spoke  heatedly  to  me  and  I  replied  still  more 
heatedly.  Suddenly,  he  rose,  faced  me  menacingly,  and 
shouted : 

"  All  right,  then.  Come  and  fight  it  out.  Come  and 
fight  it  out  downstairs." 

He  looked  at  me  With  loathing. 

I  must  have  paled,  I  think,  for  I  know  that  his  terrific 
anger  was  like  an  onslaught.  But  I  realised  that  I  must 
accept  his  challenge.  I  hated  the  thought  of  what  was 
before  me,  and  hoped  it  would  soon  be  over. 

"  Very  good.     We'll  go  downstairs." 

I  felt  a  hand  tighten  approvingly  on  my  arm  and, 
looking  round,  saw  Ivan  Hcald.     He  came  with  me. 

"  Slog  him,  Gerald,"  he  said  earnestly. 

But  I  felt  most  unheroic,  and  I  know  that  as  I  made 
my  way  to  the  door  I  was  trembling  a  little. 


278  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

The  whole  room  was  interested  now,  and  I  realised 
that  we  were  going  to  have  spectators.  And  then  the 
unexpected  happened.  The  Club  Secretary  and  a  few 
committee  men  rushed  between  us,  dragging  my  sudden 
enemy  away.  I  was  glad  to  be  separated,  for  I  was  afraid 
of  him.  ...  Is  it  possible  that  he  was  afraid  of  me  ? 

Augustus  John  used  to  come  sometimes,  and  I  remember 
chatting  with  P.  G.  Konody  about  Byzantine  architecture, 
about  which  I  think  I  know  something.  But  one  did  not 
go  to  the  Crab  Tree  for  serious  conversation.  It  was  the 
diversion  of  excitement  we  all  sought.  .  .  . 

I  think  that  for  some  weeks  in  the  spring  of  1914  I  felt 
like  a  character  in  a  rather  second-rate  novel.  Literally, 
I  was  intoxicated  with  life.  And  so  full  of  vitality  did  I 
feel  that  I  scarcely  found  time  for  sleep.  I  remember 
walking  with  my  wife  from  Soho  to  Battersea  Park  in 
the  early  hours  of  a  June  or  July  morning  after  being  up 
all  night.  Several  friends  accompanied  us,  and  though 
we  ought  to  have  felt  extremely  jaded,  we  were  as  fresh 
as  paint  at  our  seven  o'clock  breakfast  of  cherries  and 
coffee  and  honey.  I  tried  to  feel  like  George  Meredith 
as  I  ate,  for  I  had  read  somewhere  that  he  frequently 
breakfasted  on  honey  and  coffee  and  fruit.  .  .  .  The 
imitative  instincts  that  we  little  artists  have !  How 
strange  it  is  !  We  can  never  be  ourselves  for  long.  We 
are  always  imagining  ourselves  to  be  someone  else  more 
distinguished,  or  more  interesting.  WTe  are  always 
insatiably  curious  about  the  feelings  and  thoughts  of 
others.  Pale  imitators  we  are.  And  when  we  snatch 
at  our  personalities,  how  feeble  they  seem  .  .  .  how 
feeble  they  are. 

One  frightfully  busy  week  an  invitation  came  to  us 
from  Madame  Strindberg  to  sup  with  her  at  the  Sign  of 
the  Golden  Calf,  popularly  known  as  The  Cabaret.     We 


NIGHT  CLUBS  279 

did  not  particularly  want  to  go,  but  I  had  been  deeply- 
interested  in  August  Strindberg  ever  since  I  had  read  Max 
Nordau's  Degeneration  (that,  I  think,  is  not  the  title, 
but  you  know  the  book  I  mean)  and  I  had  wished  to  learn 
more  about  this  strange  vitriolic  personality,  and  since 
Strindberg  himself  was  dead,  Madame  Strindberg  seemed 
to  be  the  best  person  to  whom  to  go  for  information. 

The  Cabaret  was  in  a  large  cellar  at  the  end  of  Heddon 
Street,  and  the  narrow  way  was  blocked  up  with  taxis 
as  our  own  cab  sped  round  the  corner  from  Regent  Street. 
The  place  was  nearly  full,  and  a  Frenchman  with  a  little 
waxed  moustache  was  singing  Two  Eyes  of  Grey,  with  his 
eyes  glued  to  the  ceiling  in  a  stupidly  sentimental 
manner,  and  I  recollect  that  our  first  impulse  was  to 
turn  and  flee.  One  hears  such  songs,  I  am  told,  in 
Bolton  and  Oldham,  and,  I  dare  say,  in  the  London 
suburbs,  but  that  Madame  Strindberg  should  come  all 
the  way  from  Sweden  and  bring  a  man  all  the  way 
from  France  to  sing  the  latest  inanity  was  incredible. 
But  my  eye  caught  some  fantastically  carved  figures 
that  leered  and  leaned  from  the  great,  thick  posts  sup- 
porting the  roof.  These  painted  creatures  were  attractive 
and  promising  and  futuristic,  and  : 

"  At  all  events,  we'll  drink  a  bottle  of  champagne 
before  we  go,"  said  I,  as  a  waiter  drew  us  to  a  table  and 
announced  that  supper  was  about  to  be  served.  '  Foi 
champagne  always  helps,"  I  added. 

And,  really,  for  an  hour  or  two  I  required  a  little  artificial 
stimulus  in  order  to  survive  the  dullness  of  the  musical 
programme. 

"  Whoever  the  people  are  who  run  this  place,"  I  said 
to  a  pale,  elderly  man  who  sat  opposite  to  me,  "  they  are 
extraordinarily  stupid.  They  get  Frank  Harris  to  lecture 
one  evening  and  mve  us  inane  music  the  next.  One  doesn't 
come  to  a  night  club  to  be  flapdoodled." 

"  Flap ?  "  he  queried. 


280  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

'  Flapdoodled.  Yes.  I  mean  these  people  who  sing 
and  recite  like  a  Penny  Reading.  They  do  these  things 
in  Higher  Wycombe  and  Bluzzerby-on-Stream.  They 
should  not  be  done  here." 

The  pale  man  did  not  understand.  He  coughed  behind 
a  very  white  hand  and  delicately  selected  a  nut. 

•  •  •••••« 

And  then  Madame  Strindberg  approached  our  table. 
She  had  been  pointed  out  to  me  half-an-hour  previously 
and  I  had  noted  a  pale  little  woman  who  appeared  to 
examine  her  guests  rather  nervously.  She  looked  cold 
and  careworn.  She  was  very  silent,  and  her  black 
clothing  and  white  face  struck  a  sombre  note  in  all  the 
moving  light  and  colour  of  the  large,  warm  room. 

She  came  to  the  table  and  introduced  herself  to  us, 
sitting  down  and  placing  a  nervous  little  hand  in  mine. 
I  soon  discovered  she  had  no  conversation,  for,  try  how 
she  might,  she  could  not  say  anything  that  mattered  in 
the  least.  She  chattered  a  little,  made  a  few  exclamations, 
and  then  sat  silent.  To  me  she  seemed  full  of  negations, 
denials.  Personality  she  had,  I  daresay,  but  it  did  not 
arouse  my  interest  in  the  least,  and  after  I  had  paid  her 
a  few  insincere  compliments  concerning  the  Club,  I  also 
sat  silent.  After  a  while,  she  was  taken  away  to  another 
table  by  some  friends. 

On  subsequent  occasions  I  saw  her,  but  I  do  not  re- 
member that  I  had  further  communication  with  her  except 
when  I  was  made  an  honorary  member  of  the  Club,  when 
I  wrote  to  her  a  short  note  of  thanks.  She  was  no  key 
to  Strindberg  :  at  all  events,  no  key  I  could  use. 

•  ••••••• 

Later  on  that  night,  the  room  roused  itself  from  its 
semi-lethargy,  and  golden  confetti  and  balls  of  coloured 
paper  were  thrown  about  by  ladies  and  gentlemen  who, 
not  knowing  each  other,  desired  an  acquaintanceship. 
The  balls  of  paper  unrolled  themselves  into  long  ribbons 


NIGHT  CLUBS  281 

which,  catching  on  to  projections  from  the  supporting 
pillars,  hung  in  long  loops  and  festoons  which,  thickening, 
soon  began  to  resemble  a  gigantic  spider's  web.  Silly- 
musical  toys  were  given  us,  and  men  and  women — but 
especially  women — made  silly  noises  on  them  and  giggled, 
or  else  shrieked  uproariously.  .  .  .  Except  for  the  supper, 
which  was  excellent,  the  evening  was  not  a  success,  and 
I  do  not  suppose  I  should  have  gone  there  again  if  I  had 
not  been  in  search  of  Frank  Harris,  or  if  Jack  Kahane 
had  not  insisted  upon  my  accompanying  him. 

I  made  a  fairly  extensive  examination  of  London  night 
clubs  during  the  ensuing  few  months.  One,  near  Black- 
friars,  admitted  me  to  full  membership  on  the  payment 
of  the  sum  of  one  shilling,  and  I  used  to  go  there — why, 
I  know  not — and  throw  darts  at  a  board  and  drink  beer. 
If  I  did  not  throw  darts,  I  found  I  was  deemed  eccentric. 
So  I  threw  darts. 

Murray's  was  beyond  my  means,  and  I  found  the  people 
there  untalented  and  plethoric.  They  ate  too  much. 
And  another  club  devoted  to  "  the  "  profession  was  full 
of  trifling  women  and  jaunty  men.  Actresses  are  dear 
children,  but  at  night  they  become  tiresome.  And  actors 
always  want  me  to  praise  them.  They  always  pretended 
to  be  quite  familiar  with  my  n?me,  and  invariably  invited 
me  to  "  have  one."  Quite  nice  people,  though,  I  assure 
you. 
....  •  ... 

A  night  club  is  never  for  the  old.  Grey-haired  people 
should  always  be  at  home  after  midnight.  And  there 
should  be  no  card-playing.  Dancing  one  would  have 
of  course,  and  music  of  the  finest.  And  wine,  and  many 
pretty  women,  and  a  certain  quietness,  and  invisible 
waiters,  and  a  perfume  of  roses.  ...  As  I  write,  I  ask 
myself :  "  Why  should  I  not  establish  a  night-club  differ- 
ent from  all  the  others  ?  "     It  would  be  so  easy  to  be 


282  SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

different ;  it  would  be  so  difficult  for  me  hot  to  be  different. 
.  .  .  One  wants  space,  of  course  :  I  hate  being  crushed 
against  very  full -bosomed  ladies.  .  .  .  Oh,  and  above  all, 
I  would  have  a  big  room  set  apart  for  the  hour  that  comes 
after  dawn.  Empty  bottles,  spilt  wine,  stale  tobacco- 
smoke,  cigarette  ends,  all  kinds  of  untidiness  :  how  horrible 
these  are  in  the  sun  of  a  May  or  June  morning  !  Yes, 
we  would  all  go  at  dawn  into  another  room,  a  room 
coloured  green,  with  narcissi,  and  jonquils  and  hyacinths 
on  the  tables  :  a  room  with  open  windows  :  a  room  with 
fruit  spread  invitingly  :  a  room  where  one  could  still  be 
gay  and  in  which  one  need  not  feel  sordid  and  spiritually 
jaded  and  spiritually  unclean.  ...  If  you  have  the  right 
mental  outlook,  you  will  never  feel  spiritually  unclean 
after  a  night  of  riot,  but  all  our  London  night  clubs  in 
pre-war  days  seemed  to  conspire  together  to  make  enjoy- 
ment unhealthy,  gaiety  a  matter  for  after-regret,  and 
exaltation  a  little  disgraceful.  ...  If  someone  will  lend 
me  a  lot  of  money  (or  give  it  me — why  shouldn't  he  ?) 
I  will  found  a  night  club  that  will  knock  all  the  others 
into  a  cocked  hat.  .  .  . 


INDEX 


Abercrombie,   Charles,   56 

Abercrombie,  Lascelles,  73-74 

Achurch,  Janet,  15,  132,  207-209 

Ackland,  W.  A.,  103 

Ackte,  Aino,  53,  68,  261 

Adcock,  St  John,  64 

/E,  igi,  261,  264 

Agate,  J.  E.,  66,  157,  191,  210 

Angell,  Norman,   132 

Archer,  William,  208 

Arnold,  Matthew,  130 

Austen,  Jane,  47 

Austin,  Frederic,  187,  190,  238 


B 


Bach,  J.  S.,  45,  256 

Bain,  Nicol,  276-277 

Balzac,  H.  de,  71,  79,  264-265 

Bantock,    Granville,    148,    179-180, 

181,  187,  188-191,  234,  242,  246- 

251.  256 
Barker,  Granville,  15 
Baudelaire,  275 
Bauer,  Harold,  1 81-182 
Baughan,  E.  A.,   144-145 
Beecham,   Thomas,    158,    193,   232, 

258 
Beerbohm,  Max,  135-136,  268 
Beethoven,  L.  von,  45,  79,  249 
Behn,  Aphra,  47 
Behrens,  Gustave,  152 
Bellini,  233 

Belloc,  Hilaire,  73,  265 
Bennett,  Arnold,  33,  43,  62,  68-71, 

79,   94,   no,    125,   132,   156,  202, 

253 
Bennett,  Joseph,   143 

Berlioz,  H.,  79,  230 

Besant,  Annie,  15,  22-25 

Binyon,  L.,  129 

Bishop,  Stanley,   141 

283 


Bizet,  196 

Bjornson,  B.,  33 

Blackmore,  R.  D.,  119 

Blavatsky,  Madame,  23-24,  89 

Boughton,   Rutland,   103,  259-261 

Bourchier,  Arthur,  205 

Bradlaugh,  Charles,  22 

Brahms,   J.,   181-182,  254-255 

Brewer,   Herbert,   188 

Brian,    Havergal,   68,   85,    194,  235- 

236 
Brieux,  E.,  33 

Brighouse,  Harold,  33,  55-67,  210 
Brodsky,  A.,   152,  226 
Bronte,  Charlotte,  47,  94,  178 
Brown,  F.  Madox,   163 
Brown,  Oliver  Madox,  267 
Brown,  T.  E.,   119,   123,   128-130 
Browning,  Robert,  33 
Burton,  Richard,  269 
Busoni,  F.,  214 
Butt,  Clara,  48 
Byron,  H.  J.,  62 
Byron,  Lord,  264 


Caine,  Hall,   13,    14,    1 17-127,   128- 

130,  202,  268 
Carpenter,  Edward,  90,  132,  260 
Chatterton,  267 
Chesterton,  Cecil,  72,  132 
Chesterton,  G.  K.,  71-73,  90,  94 
Chopin,  F.,  185 
Cleopatra,  115 
Coates,  John,   187,  261-262 
Congreve,  62-63 
Conrad,  J.,  94,  156 
Coulomb,  Madame,  24 
Courlander,  A.,   137-138 
Courtney,  W.  L.,  134 
Cowen,  F.  H.,  227-229 
Craig,   Gordon,  202-203 
Croskey,  Julian,  116 
Crowley,  Aleister,  276 


284 


INDEX 


D 


Davidson,  J.,  132,  234 

Davies,  Walford,  28-31,  254-255 

Davison,  J.  W.,  143 

Dawson,    Frederick,    212-213,    216, 

218,  223 
Debussy,  Claude,  197,  214,  215,  230, 

234,  242,  244,  252,  261 
Defoe,  D.,  87 
De  Goncourt  freres,  40 
De  l'lsle  Adam,  Villiers,  186 
Delius,  F.,  234,  251-252 
De  Maupassant,  Guy,  55 
De  Pachmann,  Vladimir,  184-186 
Derby,  Lord,  177 
De  Walden,  Lord  Howard,  252 
Dickens,  C,  79,  94 
Dilnot,  F.,  103 
Donizetti,  233 
Douglas,  Lord  Alfred,  32 
Dowson,  E.,  261 
Dukas,  P.,  230 
Dunn,  J.  Nicol,  159 
Duparc,  244 


Elgar,    Edward,    79-87,    188,   246, 

261-262 
Eliot,  George,  128 
Epstein,  J.,  52-53,  170 
Ervine,  St  John,  133 
"  Eve  "  of  The  Tatler,  31 


Graham,  R.  B.  Cunninghame,  142 
Graves,  C.  L.,   145 
Greig,  E.,  180,  226-227 
Grew,   Sydney,   1 79-181 
Guilbert,  Yvette,  47-49,  54,  182 


H 


Hahn,  Reynaldo,  244 

Halle,  Charles,  182,  227 

Handel,  G.  F.,  188,  233 

Hardy,  T.,  94,  107 

Harris,  Frank,  14,  32-46,  126,  132, 

179,  279,  281 
Harrison,  Austin,  32,  37 
Harrison,  Julius,  181,  193,  194,  258- 

259 
Hauptmann,  33 
Hatton,  J.  L.,  233 
Heald,  Edith,  242 
Heald,  Ivan,  115,  138-139,  166-168, 

241,  275,  277 
Hemans,  F.,  95,  97 
Henderson,  Arthur,   175-176 
Henley,  W.  E.,  128,  134 
Herford,  C.  H.,  34,  38,  157 
Hobbes,  John  Oliver,  30 
Holbrooke,  J.,  252-254 
Horniman,  A.,  33,   55,  58,  63,   73, 

154,  209-211 
Horsley,  Victor,  49-50 
Houghton,   Stanley,   33,   55-67,   69, 

210 
Housman,  Laurence,  33 
Hueffer,  F.  M.,  32 
Hughes,  Herbert,  134,  168,  171,  187 


Forrest,  Charles,  66 
Fried,  Oskar,  150-152 


Galsworthy,  J.,  63,  107,  268 
Garvice,  C,  no 
Garvin,  J.  L.,  41 
George,  Lloyd,  26-28 
Gerhardt,  Elena,  223 
Gilbert,  W.  S.,  78 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  120 
Godard,  Arabella,  234 
Gorton,  Canon,  31 
Gounod,  C,  245 


Ibsen,  H.,  ii,  33,  209 
Irving,  H.  B.,  66 


James,  Henry,  173 

Jerome,  J.  K.,  77-78 

Joachim,  182 

John,     Augustus,     52-53,     168-171, 

239,  278 
Jones,  Henry  Arthur,  203-205 
Joubert,  46 


INDEX 


285 


K 


Kahane,    Jack,  33-35,  55-57,  157- 

158.  281 
Keats,  J.,  174,  264 

Klindworth,  Karl,  212,  216-219 
Konody,  P.  G.,  278 
Kreisler,  F.,  261 
Kubelik,  182 


Langford,    S.,   143,    148-150,    157, 

187,  191,  256 
Lawrence,  D.  H.,  270-272 
Leighton,  Lord,  234 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  171 
Lett,  Phyllis,  181 
Liszt,  F.,  170,  218 
"  Little  Tich,"  268 
Locke,  W.  J.,  89 
Lowe,  Harry,   168,  240-242,  244 
Lucas,  E.  V.,  268 
Lunn,  Kirkby,  234 
Lyall,  E.,  96 
Lytton,  Bulwer,  96 


M 


McNaught,  W.  G.,  187-190,  257-258 

Mair,  G.  H.,  62,  69,  70 

Malet,  Lucas,  123 

Manchester   Guardian,    11,    34,    38, 

48,  5s,   65-66,   75,    154-160,    191, 

2og-2io 
Marchesi,  Blanche,  48 
"  Marmaduke,"  268 
Marriott,  Charles,  134-135 
Marriott,  Ernest,  56,  202-203 
Marx,  Karl,  15 
Maseheld,  John,  73-76,  95-97,  201, 

209 
Maude,  Cyril,  60 
Mead,  G.  R.  S.,  90 
Mendelssohn,  F.,  198,  233 
Meredith,  George,  38,  128,  267,  268 
Middleton,  Richard,  40 
Milne,  A.  A.,  77,  268 
Monkhouse,  Allan,  33,  65,  157,  210 
Monro,  Harold,  73-74 
Montague,  C.  E.,  63,  157,  210 
Moore,  George,  13,  17,  20-21 
Morley,  Lord,  268 


Morris,  William,  18 

Morrow,  Edwin,  139,  168,  172,  239, 

241-242 
Morrow,    Norman,    139,    168,    172- 

173,  239-243 
Mudie,  W.  H.,  56,  65 
Mullings,  Frank,  179- 181 
Murger,  H.,  173 


N 


Napoleon,  44,  50 

Newman,    Ernest,   48,   81-84,    143, 

148,  179,  181,  187-188,  190,  226, 

234,  246-247,  249,  252 
Newman,  J.  H.,  86 
Nicoll,  W.  R.,  64 
Nietzsche,  F.,  45,  91,  131 
Nordau,  Max,  279 
Northcliffe,  Lord,  39,  41-44,  154 


O 


Olcott,  Colonel,  90 

Orage,  A.  R.,  22,  43,  91,  104,  130- 

i32»  179 
Ouida,  134 


Paderewski,  1.,  182-186 

Pain,  Barry,  140 

Pankhurst,  Emmeline,  50-51,  179 

Pater,  Walter,  186,  242 

Paterson,  W.  R.,  267-268 

Patmore,  Coventry,  267 

Patti,  Adelina,  53 

Petri,  Egon,  223 

Plato,  90 

Poe,  E.  A.,  79,  253 

Pond,  Major,  120 

Price-Heywood,  W.  P.,  56,  80 

Pugh,  Edwin,  267 

Punch,  25,  77 

Pyne,  Kendrick,  28,  162-164 


R 

Ravel,  197,  255 
Reger,  Max,  197,  234 
Richardson,  Frank,   14 


286 


INDEX 


Richter,    Hans,    150,    158,   227-228, 

229-223 
Robins,  Elizabeth,   178-179 
Ronald,  Landon,  157,  194,  234-237 
Rootham,  Cyril,  256 
Ross,  Adrian,  140 
Rossetti,  D.  G.,  46,  223,  258 
Rowley,  Charles,   164 
Runciman,  J.  F.,  194 
Ruskin,  John,  46,  86,  119,  234 


Santley,  Charles,  232-234 

Sauer,  Emil,  182-184 

Schlagintweit,  Capt.,   159-161 

Schumann,  Clara,  182,  254 

Scott,  Clement,  208 

Scott,  Cyril,  262 

Scott,  Dixon,  140 

Scott,  Walter,  264 

Scriabin,  234 

Seaman,  Owen,  77,  268 

Shakespeare,  Wm.,    15,  33,  36,  44, 

86,  94,  115,  207 
Shaw,  G.  B.,  11-21,  44,  94,  133,  156, 

174,  208,  210,  269 
Shelley,  P.  B.,  79,  gi,  264 
Sherard,  R.  H.,  120 
Sibelius,  234 
Smiles,  Samuel,  115,  176 
Somerset,  Lady  Henry,  179 
Spencer,  Herbert,  269 
Stead,  W.  T.,  120 
Stone,  Marcus,  25 
Strauss,   Richard,   53,  68,   84,    148, 

196,  216,  223-225,  234,  251,  256 
Streatfeild,  R.  A.,   143 
Strindberg,   August,  33,  268,   279 
Strindberg,   Madame,  43,  278-280 
Sullivan,  A.  S.,  78,  196 
"  Swift,  Benjamin,"  267-268 
Swinburne,  A.  C,  264 
Synge,  J.  M.,  60-62,  75,  241 


Tetrazzini,  53 
Thackeray,  Wm.,  94,  234 
Thurston,   Temple,   201,  205-207 
Tree,  Beerbohm,   135,   199-202 
Trollope,  Anthony,  25-69 
Tupper,  Martin,  118 


Valentine,  Jim,  185 
Velasquez,  171 
Verulam,  Lord,  115 


W 


Wagner,  Richard,  15-16,  29,  45, 
143,  167,  195,  216,  217,  229,  233, 
254-255,  274 

Ward,  Humphry,  Mrs,  178 

Warlow,  Gordon,  239-241,  244 

Watts,  G.  F.,  17-18 

Webb,  Beatrice,   174 

Webb,  Sidney,  15-16,  21,  174 

Weber,  231 

Welldon,  Bishop,  28-31 

Wells,  H.  G.,  ("Mr  Kipps"),  15,  16- 
17,  44,  94,  154,  174 

Wesley,  S.  S.,  162 

Whistler,  J.  M.,  45 

Whitman,  Walt,  90,  132,   191 

Wickham,   Anna,  270-271 

Wiers-Jennsen,  209 

Williams,  Vaughan,  255-257 

Wilson,  P.  W.,  25-28 

Wolf,  Hugo,  79,  145,  148,  180,  233 

Wollstonecraft,  Mary,  91 

Wood,  Henry  J.,  157,  193 


Yeats,  W.  B.,  62,  263-265 
Yonge,  C.  M.,  96 


Tennyson,  A.,  90 
Terry,  Ellen,  203,  208 


Zangwill,  Israel,  136-137 


M      000  199  742 


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